The Gamer, The Blonde, and Their Tag Along Idiot
by ForeverInsignificant
Summary: Jake didn't mean to get himself involved. All he really wanted was a simple life, but when you had an angry blonde attempting to break down your door, things tended to go from complex to oh-God-what-did-I-do-to-deserve-this?
1. Windows, That Jake Dude, and the Shed

Ridiculous. The whole entire thing was ridiculous. I just wanted to blend in, because that's who I was, the smart, silent, lazy guy that really just wanted to be left alone. Had I succeeded, maybe I wouldn't have found myself here, welcoming death like a lost friend. I gave a good run, but it didn't seem right that after all the time and effort I'd put into slipping under the radar, I could still be shoved into the arms of fate by one simple word.

_Second._

Wammy's house was a small orphanage, made up of "elite" children, but if you refused to speak for a while, everyone stopped noticing you. Everyone except Linda, actually. She didn't leave anyone who wanted to be left alone, alone. This was both her best quality, and her worst, and back then, I was glad that she couldn't sit and bother me all day. I was glad, because that meant that I could continue to maintain my patterns of getting nothing accomplished. How stupid was I, just waiting, getting closer and closer to the day the system would fuck me over, without a care in the world?

But, I'm getting ahead of myself.

The day my life truly began, was the twenty-eighth of November, 2003.

**2251/6165/425**

As with the beginnings of most remarkable days, this one started in a very mundane manner.

My morning routine went undisturbed. I woke up at six, but continued to dwell in the haze of half-sleep until Linda knocked on my bedroom door to remind me that my classes started at eight and that breakfast started in five minutes. I didn't know why she even bothered; I'd never gone to breakfast and I'd never even missed a class before. I didn't think it was necessary to wake me up at the ungodly hour of SEVEN in the morning.

I continued to lie in my bed, and glanced at the clock every so often. At exactly 7:30, I got out of bed, changed clothes, combed through my hair, and left my bedroom to walk to Advanced Literature.

I loved English class enough that getting up early almost didn't bug me. Almost. The class itself wasn't that far away from my room; I just liked to walk ridiculously slow. It started out as something I did to annoy the kid walking behind me in my elementary school, and then it grew into a habit. If there was one thing that I truly understood about myself at this time, it was that I was infuriatingly stubborn about my habits and patterns. This meant that even two years after I'd spoken to anyone who would even care, I continued to adhere to habits I'd formed to please them.

Anyways, English class, predictably, also went normally. After English, I took Maths. To put it gently, I had a strong distaste for math. I recognized its value as a skill, but I honestly did not like it. Thus, in math class, often times I found myself listening to anything that wasn't the teacher. On this day, it happened to be a kid who was speaking at an abnormal volume.

Evidently, the rankings were going to be updated.

What exactly are the rankings? The focus of Wammy's house was primarily to produce a successor to L, the world's greatest detective. The rankings were a placement system to judge how likely you were to be stuck— gifted— with the title of "L." The very highest in the ranks were given special classes, and the lowest were allowed to get training to become something other than a detective. For example, Linda wanted to become a professional artist.

I didn't want to be L, but I did want to be a detective. The reasoning behind this was that both being L, and being anything other than a detective, would be stressful. The classes at Wammy's were designed to make you into a detective, which meant you'd have to work hard to be something else. On top of that, I enjoy solving mysteries. There weren't a lot of things I really enjoyed doing, besides maybe music and gymnastics, thus, the idea of making a living doing something I enjoyed seemed like a really good idea.

My goal was to keep myself in the exact middle of the rankings. Then, I could go on to become a lesser detective. That was what happened to the kids who would make good detectives, but not good enough to be the next L.

I was confident in my ability to maintain my rank, therefore, I reasoned, there was no particular reason for me to go check them.

My classes ended at around two. I didn't rush to my room; instead, I chose to walk at a leisurely pace. When I got there, I took a seat at my computer desk and did the same thing I did literally every day. I opened my music library, which was filled with mostly illegally downloaded music, pressed play, and then turned off the screen.

The volume on my computer was turned down low so that no one would bug me about my taste in music. For some reason, the idea of anyone knowing what kind of music I enjoyed seemed intrusive. Apparently, no one else had this problem, because the girl with the room next to mine always played her classical music at a loud volume.

This was where the pattern started to shift. Usually, no one walked by my room for another five minutes, but on the 28th of November, 2003, at approximately 2:43, somebody with loud footfalls— not at all like Emily's, who usually walked by around three— came barreling down the hallway.

"Where in the fuck is this Jake dude!"

Even with the disturbance in the pattern, I hadn't expected it to revolve around me.

The very first thing you learn coming into Wammy's House is that as a genius, you are never, ever safe. Because of this, they give you an alias of sorts. It was meant to protect you when you became a detective, or whatever you were going to be.

My alias happened to be Jake, so that meant that somebody was most likely looking for me. They didn't sound happy so... Thank god for first story windows.

I hid in a shed just inside of the woods. The beaten down, rusty shed was where the rebellious kids came in the evenings to smoke, do drugs, and beat each other up. Because of this, it was the last place anyone would look for a kid like me. I was safe to hide in there until dinner.

When dinner rolled around, I'd have to go to the dining hall. Roger, the orphanage director, checked to make sure that no one had run away at dinner every single day. This meant that it was a requirement that you showed up. Other meals were optional, and I usually didn't show up at either breakfast or lunch.

Dinner was at six, which meant that I would have to sit in the shed for about three hours... Fun...

I sighed as I slid down the wall to sit on the ground. I could smell the cigarettes in the air. In an odd sort of way, I found it comforting. My father and my older sister had been smokers. My mom had hated the smell, and made them smoke on the porch. I spent a majority of my time reading on that very same porch.

I looked around the small shed. In one of the corners, there was a pack of cigarettes and a pack of matches. For a moment, I'd wanted to try it. It'd only be one right? Dad and Carrie used to smoke, and mom even admitted to trying it once, and it had never hurt them. But then again, every single health teacher I'd ever had complained at least once about the consequences of smoking. In the end, I decided upon wasting a good minute watching the controlled flames dance on the end of a match. I was off in my own world, not paying attention, and I was perfectly content to do just that.

"What are you doing?"

"Gah! Holy shit don't do that!" The boy hadn't really startled me, but I had appearances to keep up. I recognized him as Matt, the tag along to the most violent boy in the orphanage.

"Well?" he asked.

"Hmm, oh," I paused and shifted to lean against the wall again, "I was just watching it burn. Was thinking of smoking a cigarette, 'cuz I like the smell, but I'm too much of a wuss."

"Oh, I thought you might've been trying to waste all of the matches to stop us from smoking or something stupid like that," he said as he took a handheld game system out of his pocket and sat himself down across from me.

I let out a short laugh, "Please, I honestly don't care what you guys do so long as Roger doesn't catch you and throw a fit. God knows I'd be able to hear him from my room."

He nodded his head, busy clicking buttons on his game, "Dully noted. Pass me the cigarettes."

"What, no 'please'?" I rolled my eyes and threw him the cigarettes and the matches. The kids at Wammy's generally didn't have good manners, and most of them weren't very social, either. The kids that were social were usually the newer kids, or kids that had found themselves placed in the orphanage as teenagers. Even then, most were still antisocial, because geniuses just didn't fit in anywhere.

"What'cha playing?" I asked, just to satisfy my own curiosity. A few of my old friends were avid gamers, and the music seemed to be in the same sort of category that a few of the games they shoved on me were.

I was starting to think he wasn't going to answer me, when he finally spoke up.

"Kingdom Hearts."

I was right then. Curiosity satisfied for the time being, I was content to just sit and listen to Matt play. I found myself amused, even, as I watched him try to light a match and play his game at the same time. It seemed to be a skill he'd mastered already, however, because it only took him a few tries.

Eventually, I was lulled to sleep by the sounds blaring from the boy's handheld gaming system.

* * *

**EDITED: 1/30/13**


	2. Mister, the Alphabet, and the French

**2251/6165/425**

When I woke up later that day, it was because of the distinct lack of music. I rubbed my eyes and looked around. Matt had long since left the shed, and I noticed that it was already almost sundown, which meant that I was late. _Great, Roger's going to be so happy with me!_ Note the sarcasm.

Even though I was late, I still wasn't going to run. Instead, I settled for what would be considered a normal walking pace. The dining room wasn't too far away from the front door, so I got there quickly.

I decided to listen at the door for a moment before I walked in. Roger was still doing roll call, which was strange, because roll call didn't usually take long. Perhaps he'd already noticed I was missing and was only checking to make sure no one else was gone? Whatever the reason, I really did not want to open the door. Should I just go back to my room and pretend I'd been asleep? But then surely I would find myself with a detention. If I went in, though, people would stare.

I sighed. Perhaps I could lie my way out of trouble?

I pushed open one of the large wooden doors. As predicted, every face in the room turned to look at me. I could feel Roger glaring at me from my left side, so I turned to face him nervously.

"Umm… Hey?" I said. My voice wavered. I really did not want to do this. Was it too late to turn around?

"You're late. Explain."

Oh, he was going to give me a chance? Right, it was time to put my intelligence to the test. How do I get out of this without getting in trouble? I ran through the day in my head, because after all, the best lies were the ones that had a bit of truth in them.

"Well?" Roger looked impatient, but luckily I'd already decided what to say.

"I'm sorry, sir, but I got lost in the woods. You see, there was this guy, and he was really mad at me. I'm not sure why, but he was kinda scaring me, so I ran. I'm not really fast, so I figured that my best chance was to run into the woods, because there are a lot of trees, so speed really doesn't matter. So I got away from the dude, but then I was lost, and I had to find my way all the way back here. So I'm sorry, but I think me being beat up would've been a lot more trouble than just me being late," I really hoped he'd believe me, 'cuz if not, I'd get my first ever detention, and that would suck.

"I see. And who exactly was following you?" I would've been skeptic too, if I was Roger. I was a practiced liar: practiced enough to realize that was probably the weakest lie I'd ever told. However, being a practiced liar also allowed me to also be a practiced actor. I looked at the ground and let my bangs cover my eyes, the picture of "embarrassed."

"Umm, I'm not really sure, sir. I don't really know a lot of people here, so I didn't even bother looking."

"You're trying to tell me, that even though you've been here for two years, you wouldn't have even recognized the person?" He asked.

"The only person I would have recognized is Linda, and maybe Near, but neither of them are that scary, sir," I muttered. Some of the orphans laughed, although I wasn't sure why… were they making fun of me? Oh well.

It seemed as though Roger decided to believe me, because he turned to the children and asked, "Well, which one of you was terrorizing Mister Jake?"

He called me Mister. He called **me** Mister! You should probably know that Roger only calls people Mister when he likes them. That not only meant that I had managed to pull probably the dumbest lie I'd ever thought of, but that he'd probably excuse any further rule-breaking.

I had always had a talent for getting authority figures to like me, although I could never figure out why.

"What, none of you are going to admit to it? Fine, if you have any information, please come and tell me. You may take a seat, Mister Jake," At his cue, I left to go to my usual seat right between Isabelle and Janette. We were all seated in alphabetical order, but since there were so many kids, it was easy to miss it if someone was missing. There were a total of 101 kids in the orphanage at that time, not including the adults, and all of us were packed in one room. Suffice to say, the noise level was truly obnoxious.

There were five tables in the dining room. They were long tables, each having enough space to fit 26 kids (however, the maximum number of children at any one table was twenty-five). It was like that because at Wammy's, kids were sorted into "alphabets." Everyone is assigned a letter, but there were no L's except for _the_ L. Near's letter was N, Linda's was C, and mine was F.

I had no particular attachment to the letter, but because I was the second to last to enter my alphabet, there were only two letters left. It was either chose F and be a failure, or chose Q and feel _twice_ as ridiculous.

Each full alphabet was called a generation, and the generations broke down into something like this:

The fifth generation was the youngest generation. Most of the members of this generation were too young for me to really bother with at any given time, not to mention they were all loud and annoying. You could usually find them playing outside, separated into their little groups of friends (hence why I avoided going outside during the warmer seasons).

The fourth generation was the one I had belonged to, with most of the kids falling in between the ages of nine to fourteen, myself being the only exception. The children in this group came to the orphanage sometime between 1998 and 2001. I was one of the last kids to be added into the fourth generation, and Near was one of the first.

The third generation was home to the kids who came to the orphanage from 1994 to 1998. They were mostly teenagers, and they all had a bad attitude problem. I tended to avoid these kids in order to keep myself safe.

The mostly depleted second generation was comprised of the older "kids" who, for whatever reason, hadn't left yet. Most of the people in this generation had become legal adults years ago, but some chose to mooch off of the orphanage for as long as they could. The ones who stayed were lazy, and thus, easy to get along with, although I wouldn't hang around them, because I had better things to do (like memorize quotes or do flips off of my bed). Evidently, a fair few in this generation were either dead or a criminal of some sort (W, a thief that Rena liked talking about, came to mind).

The members of the first generation were already long gone, which was something that was actually a good thing. They were the first of Wammy's orphans, and, according to Rena (who was part of the first generation herself, but became a caretaker later), most of them were insane.

Wammy's House was two orphans short of having a sixth generation, but it would be a while before that happened. That was because Roger was the one who was in charge of finding genius orphans, and he hated kids.

The thought crossed my mind that I should probably locate whoever was trying to find me, so that I could avoid them. It should have been relatively easy, considering the fact that the guy would probably be angry with me for using him in such a pathetic excuse for a lie. It was unlikely that anyone from another generation would be looking for me, which meant that the person was probably in my classes.

Whoever it was knew my room was somewhere in the A-J hallway. He obviously didn't know that my letter was F, or he would have come straight to my room, so it couldn't have been someone who sat close enough to me in any of my classes to see me sign my papers (we were all required to sign our names with our alias, and then our letter, so my signature would be Jake F). Since I sat in the middle of the class, the person had to sit in the front, in ALL of his classes.

Therefore, the person I had to look for was a smart kid, but a big troublemaker. I glanced around the room. My eyes easily slid over the mass of kids enjoying their meal, some, especially the younger ones, more rambunctious than others. There was a quiet girl with a mean face, but she was listening to her friend with alarming intensity. Next to her, a dark skinned boy was helping a bubbly brunette with her homework. Linda was sketching furiously, and then there was Matt, listening disinterestedly to his friend— Mello?

It couldn't have been Mello, though. Wouldn't Matt have said something about me being in the shed if it was? Then again, Matt, like me, had never been one to truly seek conflict. If anything, he just liked to crack inappropriate jokes to egg on the girls, but that could be equated to puberty with no real guidance, not any particular desire to get beaten up (no, we are not going there [derail that train of thought right now]).

But then my eyes found themselves locked onto the blond boy himself, whose eyes, flickering between me and his companion, were lit with such a fearsome intensity that all doubt I'd had about his guilt was immediately abandoned. Quickly, I turned to face the girl to my right.

"So, Miss Isabelle, how are your classes going?" I asked. The girl called Isabelle flushed a bright red.

"Oh, well, zey are going good," she murmured. That was odd; up until this point, I'd never realized she had an accent. French, maybe? "But I am not nearly as smart as you," she finished, turning her head downwards so her hair would shield her face.

"Oh, I'm not really all that smart," I shrugged (though I was 99% sure she could not see me through her dark hair).

I looked at the food on the table, finding myself relaxed despite the situation. I'd figured out a plan, and panicking would not do me any good. I needed to eat fast, so I grabbed a few rolls, some mashed potatoes, and some chicken. Due to my experience with twenty minute lunches in elementary school, eating quickly was not a problem. I could even do it discreetly, so as not to look like a pig. When I was done, I raised my hand in the air slowly, attempting to look like I didn't care much. Rena, the caretaker, nodded at me as a sign of dismissal. I took care to stand slowly, willing the blond kid not to notice. Of course, he did notice, and he was quick to raise his hand in to the air as well.

"Finished already, Mello?" asked Rena. She looked at Mello's still full plate with disapproval shining in her features. "You didn't eat a ton of chocolate before dinner, did you?"

"Uh, yeah," Mello replied with haste, already in the process of standing up.

I didn't stick around to hear Rena's reply, and I was already around a few corners by the time I heard the heavy doors open again. I didn't have much of a choice when I thought about where to go. If I didn't head to my room now, that Mello kid would undoubtedly wait in the hallway for me to go there for the night. However, all was not lost. If I beat Mello to my room, he still wouldn't know which one it was, and I'd be safe. With that in mind, I sped off through the hallways towards my room

* * *

**EDITED: 1-31-13**


	3. Running, Lies, and the Backstreet Boys

**2251/6165/425**

I was not a very good runner. Way back in kindergarten I had crashed my bike and fractured my knee badly enough that to this day, I still get aches if I run long distances. At the time, I was hoping that I had enough of a head start that it wouldn't matter when I started slowing down. Maybe Mello would get lost on the way to my hallway? I knew for a fact that his room wasn't in the same hallway as mine. However, I was also aware that Matt's letter was J, and that his room_ was_ in my hallway. They were good enough friends that one could assume they'd been in each other's rooms before.

Miraculously, I managed to make it to my room before Mello did. I didn't lock my door, just in case Mello checked all the rooms. Instead, I hid under my bed. The beds at Wammy's were all close to the ground, to make life easier for the younger kids, which meant that not many people would've been able to fit under there. I was a pretty thin kid, though, so it was easy for me to slide under the bed and pretend I wasn't there.

Around five minutes later, I heard stomping footsteps in the hallway.

"Where the fuck did that stupid brat go!?" I recognized the angry voice as Mello's, and tried not to panic.

"Probably to his room, Mells." Matt, the kid with the goggles, had a much calmer voice.

"Tch, he thinks he can hide from me," grumbled Mello. I probably wouldn't have heard him if they hadn't stopped just outside of my door. "Well, I'll just have to check every single one of these rooms till I find him!" This was said louder, so I assumed it was supposed to get some sort of reaction from me.

I heard a door from down the hall open. They must have decided to start with the first door and the move on until they found me. The door that they had opened most likely belonged to Anna, the girl who sat next to me in science. I waited anxiously, pulling at the fabric of my sweater as I made sure for the nth time that my legs were hidden. When they arrived at my door, they turned the doorknob very slowly. I assumed this was also meant to intimidate me, so I tried not to get too worked up.

"Ugh, he's not in here either," complained Mello, after he and his friend had checked all of the places they _thought_ I could hide. I felt someone sit on my bed and tried not to freak out; they were squishing me!

"Can't we just stop looking? The other kids will be back from dinner soon," Matt sighed. He was close to where I was hiding, so I guessed that he was the one seated on my bed.

"Oh yeah, the other kids! We can watch to see which rooms they go into and whichever one they don't is the one with our guy in it! Matt, you're a genius!" Mello proceeded to run out of my room.

"Gees, Mello, I love you, but sometimes you can be really troublesome," Matt muttered under his breath as he walked out of my room and shut the door.

I waited a few moments before getting out from under my bed, and then locked my door. There wasn't much I could do now except hope that they didn't notice when no one came back to room F.

"I wonder if Matt is gay," I said quietly to myself with a laugh, referring to when he said he loved Mello. It's not that there's anything wrong with being gay, I'd just find it funny because if Matt was gay, then he'd be in love with Mello, who was super Christian, judging by his necklace. Rumors were already flying about the two's "relationship," so I supposed it was plausible. However, the same kids who spread rumors about Matt and Mello, were the same kids who spread rumors about Near being an assassin, and Linda a vampire. In other words, they were totally unreliable at the best of times.

I took off my sweater like I always did just before I went to bed. I was wearing a blue shirt underneath it, just like I always had. Literally, the only things in my dresser were blue shirts, baggy jeans, and boxers. I didn't like to get too creative with my outfits. The only thing I would sometimes change was the color of the sweater I was wearing. I had a black one, which I wore on a typical day, a blue one that I wore when it rained, a green one, which I wore on Carrie's birthday (Christmas) every year, and an orange one, that I wore on my birthday (January 26th) every year. Linda used to bug me about it, but she had stopped when she realized she wasn't getting anywhere. She usually made a point to be happy on the two days of the year when I wore colors other than blue and black.

I couldn't remember if I was always like that. I'm wasn't stupid, I mean, I knew normal people didn't wear the same thing every day, and they certainly didn't get upset when they had to change it up, so maybe it was a sign that I had some serious mental issue. Then again, who at Wammy's house _didn't_ have a strange mental issue? But the fact of the matter is, it didn't matter if I had some mental issue, or a physical disability, or a severe behavioral disorder, or an addiction, because I was smart. I was good at calculations and solving problems, and writing long flowing essays about meaningless issues.

At Wammy's, the house of the elite and just, I could probably injure someone beyond repair, and _still_ be guaranteed a spot here, so long as I justified it by some statement of "ultimate judgment."

The ones who didn't realize that were the stupid ones. For example, Linda was dumb enough to think that she'd get kicked out if she did something wrong. She spent her time at Wammy's upholding rules and tattling on wrong-doers claiming "justice," without realizing that she wasn't fixing anything. Hell, the more she attempted to get me to do things, the more inclined I was to do the opposite. She was irreparably closed-minded, and never took the time to look at the whole picture.

Maybe I was kind of envious of her, because the whole picture kind of sucked.

What wouldn't I have given to be _that_ blissfully ignorant, to think that the world ran on silly notions of "fair" and "unfair." Even, no, _especially _Wammy's House had never run on such false pretenses. The children at Wammy's were kept out of the public eye, and on paper, they didn't even exist. Murders could be committed at the orphanage, and the only consequence would be detentions and having to deal with people watching your every move.

The only way to keep yourself alive and out of harm is to outsmart your opponent at every step.

Lying was my best friend in these days. If I could pretend to be the exact definition of unthreatening, that was another day I'd survive. If I could keep pretending that I knew no one's name, and eventually start to believe it myself, then that was a day I stayed out of trouble. If I could keep writing papers and doing tests purposefully mediocre, so that I ended up exactly thirteenth in the rankings, and do it for so long that I forget I'm even doing it, then I'd lived another day. Some people would consider me a coward, but I was, essentially, a creature of logic, no matter how faulty that logic was.

I was aware that even though there were blissfully ignorant people, there were also people like Mello, who fully realized that they were withheld from the law. There were people in that orphanage that fully exploited this fact.

At Wammy's, more kids ended up "sick" because of Mello, than they did from normal illnesses. On occasion, you'd find yourself with very strange grades if you fought with Matt. One wrong word around Kate, and you were bound to have your social life destroyed. Even sweet, innocent looking Near, had his own clever ways of getting revenge.

Yeah, the world was rotten.

I shook my head and frowned. Where was I going with that train of thought? I couldn't be bothered to remember anymore. I hopped onto my bed and curled up in a ball. I planned to stay there until Mello came to yell at me. The chances that I could avoid him until my classes ended tomorrow were decent, because I could still wander out my window and enter through the front door. However, there was no chance that I could avoid him altogether. As soon as classes ended, he'd catch me.

Still, I would rather deal with him later where there were witnesses, than that night, when no one would be around.

The peace I'd found absorbed in one of the books on my shelf was disturbed violently about an hour later.

"Ha!" Heavy, stomping footsteps were heard coming down the hall. Mello must've found out which room I was in.

There was a brief silence for a moment, before the loud pounding on my door began. "Let me in!"

I couldn't resist messing with him, because I knew I was fucked either way, "Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin."

In hindsight, this was probably not the best thing to say.

"You little-! Gah!" he exclaimed, his fists pounding harder on the door. I chose to ignore him and drift off to sleep. Ignoring annoying sounds and falling to sleep was a skill I'd mastered from when I used to have to share a room with my older sister Janice, only those noises were a bit more disturbing…

I mean seriously, I didn't want to listen to ridiculously loud Backstreet Boys' music at three AM.

Ha-ha, you thought I was talking about something dirty, didn't you?

**EDITED: 2-1-13 (1-2-13 for all you British folks out there)**


	4. Pencils, Notes, and the Couch

_November 29__th__, 2003_

**2250/6164/424**

The next morning, the pounding had stopped. I woke up at six again, but by the time seven rolled around, no one had stopped by. That was my first clue that something was off. There weren't a lot of things that could stop a determined Linda, but at times, Mello could be very manipulative. Because she hadn't stopped by, I could only assume that Mello was either still in the hallway waiting for me, or he'd kept everyone up late pounding on my door. Not one to take unnecessary chances, I prepared for the day and left out my window with only five minutes left to get to class.

If my timing was right, I would walk into my English class just seconds away from being late.

Of course, my timing was impeccable, as always, and I made it right on time.

Mello was already in the front of the room, and he looked unreasonably pissed. He had I tight grip on his pen, and it almost seemed like- CRACK

…Never mind.

I sat at my seat in the exact middle of the classroom feeling equal parts smug and terrified. On one hand, I'd outsmarted the second best, but on the other, if you happened to forget, he was still plotting my murder.

Just as Mr. Pearson, the English teacher, began his lesson, a note was dropped on my desk. I gave it an odd look, half-expecting it to blow up, but when it didn't, I casually unfolded it, so as not to draw attention to myself.

_Mello's going to kill you._

_~Isabelle I_

I suppressed the urge to comment sarcastically. Isabelle's handwriting looked as though she'd formed a different writing style for each letter. I wondered if she did it on purpose, but shoved the thought aside as I started writing a fake note about the proper use of quotations and semi-colons, carefully copying her lettering style.

After I finished that, I wrote my reply.

_I know. Do you know why?_

_-Jake F_

_You don't know? You tied with him for second in the rankings! Not to mention you've been running away from him since yesterday. You really are gonna die..._

_~Isabelle I_

I was in second? Man, that sucked! I must have jinxed myself… Who wanted to be the first loser anyways? Not to mention I hated being second with a fiery burning passion. I could almost hear my friends from middle school laughing at me.

_You're kidding, right? He's mad because I tied with him? That makes no sense! It's not like I beat him or anything._

_-Jake F_

Just as I reached out to pass the note to Isabelle, Mello, the annoying asshat that he was, called out, "Mr. Pearson! Jake is passing notes!"

"Mr. Pearson! Mello is paying more attention to me than your lesson!" I yelled without thinking, matching Mello's tone exactly. He was absolutely seething, which didn't really bode well for me, but the other kids seemed to think I was funny.

"Please, quiet down kids. Jake, do you admit to passing notes?" he asked me. I like Mr. Pearson; in fact, he was my favorite teacher, which meant that the last thing I wanted to do was disappoint him.

That's what the fake note was for; after all, just because I liked someone, didn't mean I had to be honest with them (as long as I wasn't caught, at least).

"Yes, sir, Miss Isabelle was asking me about semi-colons and quotations. She didn't want to disrupt your class, so she asked me instead," I said. At the sound of her name, Isabelle had gone very still, but when she realized that I wasn't going to get us in trouble, she relaxed.

It was a believable lie, because Isabelle didn't talk in class, for the most part. The only time she'd speak up, was if a teacher mispronounced her name. Even then, her only comment would be, "Its E-sa-bell, not Iz-a-bell," (which led me to believe that her real name had been something close to Isabelle, otherwise she'd have no reason to react like that).

"Is this true, Isabelle?" Mr. Pearson asked. She nodded her head. "Then, Jake, would you mind showing me the note?"

I drew attention away from Isabelle, who was going to get us caught if she continued to look so frightened, by scraping my chair against the floor loudly. It was successful, and everyone had turned to stare at me as I passed Mr. Pearson the prewritten note. He nodded his head and stroked his mustache while he read, "Okay, I'll let it go this time, but only because you were talking about the class. Just don't do it again."

"Okay, sir," I said.

"And stop calling me sir, it isn't necessary," he added.

"Yes, sir," I said. I paused for a moment, and then realized my mistake. "Sorry, sir… Erm… I mean sorry! It's just a habit I picked up to get my best friend out of trouble—he was a bit of an idiot," I rambled, "But it was okay because he had me to do his homework for him and the teachers never— oh," I interrupted myself, "I probably shouldn't have admitted to that, sir…"

Mr. Pearson laughed, "That's okay, kiddo, just try not to call me sir in the future, okay? It makes me feel old."

"Okay," I answered with a short laugh.

See? Look at that, problem solved! I didn't even get into any trouble. Now I'd be free to do nothing after Mello beat me up! I could just _feel_ the optimism!

The rest of my classes went normally. Math was annoying, Science was disturbing, History put me to sleep, and my D.T. (Detective Training) courses were interesting, as always. However, in every single class, the blond boy managed to find a way to glare at me. Even though he sat in front of me. And was paying close attention to the lesson. To be honest, it was quite annoying.

After my last class let out, I made sure to take a really long time stuffing my things into my school bag. If I had been a religious man, I might've prayed, but since I wasn't, I walked out of the classroom with reluctant steps.

Welp, I gave it a good run…

Surprisingly, Mello waited until I got around the corner to confront me. I was vaguely intrigued by the fact that though normally the boy had an angelic sort of appearance (despite his temperament), standing in front of me, he looked more like a scary mafia boss than anything else.

"Who the fuck do you think you are!" he hissed. Mello was standing just close enough to invade my personal space, but far enough away that the severe height advantage I had over him wouldn't seem too obvious. Even at the age of fourteen, he was a master at intimidation.

I didn't really get along well with intimidating people— they tended to dislike me, for whatever reason.

"Uh, I'm Jake… I baked the cake," I said.

I had a thing for quoting books and movies, especially children's books and movies, whenever I could. This was because my mom used to make me read all sorts of books to my younger brother and sister. For the same reason, I also used to watch movies with the children I babysat to get them to fall asleep.

But to be honest, who _doesn't_ like all that childish shit?

He shoved me into the wall. "Ugh! Cut the crap!"

"Oww, did you really have to shove me?" I whined, rubbing at my shoulder.

"Listen here you, you bastard! I don't give a fuck whether or not you baked the fucking cake!" he yelled, slamming his fist in to the wall next to me (nowhere near my face, thankfully, as I'd imagine Mello would have had a tough time pulling that off [he was showing the beginning signs of a growth spurt, though, which made me a bit nervous]).

"Ooh, harsh man. If cake isn't your thing why not just say so? I could start talking about chewing gum, or people flavored chocolate, if you'd like." I was still trying hopelessly to defuse the situation.

He looked taken aback for a moment, "People flavored chocolate?"

Ah ha! Easily distracted, I see!

"Yeah, 'cuz no one wants to eat Augustus Gloop Flavored Strawberry Chocolate Covered Fudge."

Mello looked even more confused than he had before, "Who's Augustus Gloop?"

I took a moment to look disgusted. "I take it you've never seen Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Or even Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory? It's an outrage! A scandal! We have to fix this right now! Let's go!" I grabbed his wrist and started tugging him down the hallway.

"H-hey, wait," Mello complained. I immediately stopped moving, causing Mello to bump into me.

"Yes?"

He ripped his arm from my grasp. "If we're gonna watch some shitty movie, I wanna go get Matt."

"Hmm…" With Matt around, Mello would probably be less likely to strangle me. "Okay! I'll meet you guys in my room; I assume you know where it is?"

"Yeah."

I walked at an even pace to get to my room. I wanted to get the movie set up before Mello and Matt got there. If I didn't, I was afraid that Mello would kill me. The less talking I did, the better.

I couldn't believe he'd never seen Charlie and the Chocolate factory! Okay wait, I could believe he hadn't seen that particular version. It was a newer movie that had came out like last year. I had bought it when Wammy's House last took us all into town, because it looked interesting. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, however, was an older movie. There was literally no excuse for not having seen that. Not unless it was banned in what ever country he was from...

After I set up the movie, I took a quick nap, curled up on my couch. In what seemed like no time at all, my bedroom door was slammed open. The loud noise when the door hit the wall caused me to somehow fall off my couch. Couldn't they have at least knocked?

"Holy shit! Don't do that!" I picked myself up off the floor slowly, grumbling.

"You scare easily, don't you?" asked Matt as he calmly shut the door. His fingers were twitching every now and then, so I'd assumed Mello had taken away his handheld. Briefly, I wondered if that counted as an addiction.

"Tch, no. I'm too awesome for you to scare easily!"

This, of course, was a lie, but I wasn't about to admit to it.

"Yeah, that's great," Mello said, "Would you just start the movie already?"

"Oh, sure," I said, turning around to turn the T.V. on. I considered sitting on the floor, because Mello and Matt had taken up the space on my couch, but decided against it, simply because it'd be easier to hit me if I was on the floor.

It wasn't long before we were interrupted by a knock on the door. Both me and Matt turned to look at the cause of disruption, but Mello's eyes, however, stayed glued to the screen, looking slightly mystified. The knocking sound came again.

"I guess I'll go get that," I muttered with a sigh as I pulled myself lazily off the couch. I opened the door to see Linda and Isabelle standing there. "Yes?" Mello wasted no time in shushing me. I rolled my eyes and stepped out into the hallway, closing the door behind me. I really hoped they wouldn't destroy my room while I was gone.

"Yes?"

"Umm, Isabelle and I heard the door slam. Are you okay Jake?" Linda was staring at my closed door, as if hoping that she would somehow gain X-ray vision.

"Wow, it took you a while to get down the hallway, didn't it? Maybe if I made one of you into a map you wouldn't get lost," I yawned.

Linda laughed, shaking her head. "Is that a Harry Potter joke, really? I can't believe you sometimes; here I was thinking you'd been murdered. "

"I'm glad you have faith in my ability to take care of myself. Anyways, I'm fine; Mello just likes to make an entrance."

"Mello? He didn't hurt you did he?" asked Isabelle with widened eyes. Strange, since when did anyone care if I got beaten up?

"Nah, would you believe that all he wanted from me was a movie? I thought he was plotting my murder, but no, all he wanted was access to my hella sweet video supply."

"Um, like a date?" she asked, looking very, very confused.

"W-what? No, we're just… actually; I don't even know what we are. Not friends, but we're not dating! I only invited him to watch a movie because it distracted him from being mad at me. And Matt's in there too, so…" I let my sentence trail off, hoping she would get the point. If rumors got around that me and Mello were dating, he'd probably strangle me.

"Oh, I understand now, Jake is just getting himself out of trouble," Isabelle nodded, as if satisfied by her conclusion.

That was strange; Isabelle's accent had disappeared again. Perhaps she only spoke in an accent when she was surprised? It would make sense; lots of kids with accents hid them. I mean, I hadn't spoken at all for my first few months here so that I could figure out how to imitate a British accent, because I'd already noticed that the kids with accents tended to be made fun of.

"What movie are you watching? It's not something scary, right?" asked Linda. Isabelle moved to stand behind Linda. Apparently, she'd reached her speech quota for the day.

"Nah, we're just watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Mello seems really into it," I answered. "It's kinda weird."

"Oh, is that the movie about the kids going into a giant chocolate factory, and it has those really short people?"

"Yep, that's the one, It's one of my favorites," I said with a smile, "So if you girls wouldn't mind," I said, gesturing towards my door.

"Oh, of course, sorry to keep you from your movie," said Linda, laughing.

"Don't worry about it. Catch you later, Linda, Miss Isabelle." I waved and walked back into my room, where Matt and Mello were both still quietly watching the movie. I was glad to see that none of my stuff had been broken.

"What did they want?" asked Matt, completely ignoring the annoyed look he got from Mello.

"They were making sure he," I gestured to Mello, "didn't kill or seriously injure me," I answered, also ignoring the look I got.

About halfway through the movie, which I'd probably seen too many times to count, I fell asleep. I didn't know why I was so tired all of a sudden, but it might have had something to do with all of the talking and running I'd been doing, not to mention that practice had been rough that day. Maybe I needed to eat more sugar or something? I didn't know, I wasn't a doctor. I knew a nurse once, though. Not that it mattered. Oh well.

"Hey dude," said Matt, poking me in the shoulder, "The movie's over."

"I see," I mumbled with a yawn. It was only four, so we had just enough time to watch the other movie. I crawled across the carpet and fell down lazily on the floor. With my face in the carpet, I lifted my arm and changed the channel to my VCR. I pressed the play button and let my arm drop to the ground. I didn't move after that, choosing to just curl up on the carpet.

"Uh, Jake, are you okay?" asked Matt.

"Did you know that the carpets here are actually really comfortable? Like sleeping on a cloud."

"Umm, Okay, I guess."

"Wake me up when the movie's done," I mumbled into the carpet, already half-asleep.

"Shhh, the movie's starting," Mello grumbled.

Hmm, either Mello really liked movies in general, or he had a thing for sweets. Didn't Rena say something about him eating a ton of chocolate before dinner? Maybe he had an addiction to chocolate or something.

It would make sense, I guess. Nearly everyone at Wammy's had some kind of an odd quirk. Near had to be doing something with his hands at all times, Linda was always in the middle of drawing or painting something, Isabelle had a flair for fashion, Matt had his video games and his cigarettes, and I had my movie quotes.

Oh yeah, I forgot to explain. Near was the top student at the orphanage, and Mello had a one-sided rivalry with him. He looked like he could be eight, but he was actually around thirteen. He was always wearing pajamas, and he didn't go anywhere without a toy of some sort. It made him seem weak and defenseless, but I somehow doubted that he was only acting.

Ha, I just realized something, the top three kids in the orphanage had all been from the forth generation ever since I'd arrived. It would be amusing if L died, and he had to have a thirteen year old boy as his successor. If that happened, the top three (which now included me, I realized with a shock) would probably be asked to work together. It would never work, unless a miracle happened and Mello dropped his grudge against Near, but it could be interesting, I guess.

"Hey," said Mello, "Jake," he said. He was trying to get my attention… Oh well. "Hey!" He then proceeded to kick me hard in the side.

Fuck my life.

"Oww! Fucking shit, what was that for?"

"Movie's over," he said, returning to my couch.

I turned and looked at the screen, "I see… It's almost six; do you guys wanna head to the dining room? I don't want to be late again."

"It's five thirty, we have a half an hour," Mello said, looking at me like I was an idiot.

"What? It's not like we cant be early."

He continued to stare.

"Isn't Matt going to get his game?"

"His room is literally three steps down the hallway."

I held back a laugh, "Three steps? Maybe for me, but you'd have to take at least ten."

"Is that a challenge?" asked Matt, an eyebrow raised.

"Pft, I seriously doubt you can make it all the way down the hallway in three steps."

"Tsk, tsk, such little faith. Mello?"

"No, Matt," he glared.

"Aw, come on, pleaaaaase?"

"God damn, you are literally the most annoying idiot I've ever laid eyes on."

"Yesssss, come on Mels, let's win this thing!"

I was curious as to how they were going to "win," but it seemed like they had a plan. Matt, standing in the doorway, looked back to make sure I was watching. He took two steps into the hallway before Mello picked him up, walked down the hallway, and placed him in front of his door.

I laughed, hard.

"Oh my god, I literally can't even," I said, in between large gasps of air. "That was great."

Matt mock bowed, "You're welcome."

"You know, that was borderline cheating."

Matt pretended to look offended, "Me? Cheat? I think you're mistaken! Mello's the one who cheated, I just benefited from it!"

"So, you _both_ cheated."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night."

* * *

**EDITED: 1-2-13**


	5. Entertainment, Girls, and the Crybaby

**2250/6164/424**

"Ne, Jake, what are you doing?" asked Linda.

"Uh…" She'd kind of caught me at an awkward time. I was standing outside of the gym, waiting for dinner time to roll around. "Waiting?"

"For what? You know, you seem kind of nervous."

Nervous? Perhaps I was. I hadn't been able to shake the odd feeling after I'd left Matt and Mello in favor of finding some place to stand that was closer to the dining room. The feeling reminded me of the way I'd felt every first day of school, back when I'd still gone to public school.

Something was coming.

"Eh, I think I'm fine. Hey, do you still have that book I let you borrow?"

Linda nodded, "Do you need it back? You can get it after dinner, if you want."

"Yeah sure, no problem," I nodded.

"Walk with me to dinner?"

"Yeah, sure, Linda."

Usually, I wouldn't even give her the time of day, but there was just something in the air today. Besides, my schedule had already been thrown completely off, what could one more change do?

The more I thought about it, the more I realized where my annoyance with Linda sprung from. She reminded me of a friend I once had. My friends and I had been close, but any liking I may have had for Linda was completely doomed from the beginning, because she _was _so like my old friends. Innocent, naive, kind. I couldn't stand her presence because it was like a constant reminder that my friends thought I was dead.

But maybe I did sort of appreciate Linda trying, in a sick, masochistic way. After all, without the constant reminder, would I forget? I was forgetting a lot of things these days, only to remember them at inopportune moments.

On that note, I was also considering befriending Mello. Mello was different from anyone I'd interacted with before. He was angry, but it was more of a quiet, controlled anger. He didn't react badly to everything, in fact, he could be a pleasant guy sometimes, but he was also unpredictable, a challenge. I could see why Matt and him got along.

Not to mention, Mello was much more likely to win in a fight than me. He could probably keep any dangerous figures from attacking me, just by declaring me his friend. Right, so maybe I'd make a habit of hanging around Mello. That is, until he got too troublesome for me.

Mello reminded me of this one really apathetic kid from my middle school that I used to act really weird around. Like, one time I came up to him and ranted about the values of bananas, and then the next day, I told him that I hated bananas. For weeks after that I started putting small amounts of yellow paint on my face, adding a little more each day, until he asked me about it, at which point I pulled out a mirror, looked at myself, and screamed about how the banana overlords were right. I just did weird things like that, and eventually he started laughing whenever he saw me. It was totally worth it.

It wasn't like I was being mean to him or picking on him; I'm not that kind of guy. I was just trying to get him to smile. Funny, how I'd forgotten.

We were the last kids to arrive in the dining room. Mello and Matt were already there, ranting on about something and playing a game, respectively.

Roger immediately started taking roll call. I tuned out for a little bit while he called out the kids from the older generations. I only started paying attention once he said "Emily."

Emily answered him and I immediately noticed that she looked nervous about something. I decided to disregard it because it probably had nothing to do with me.

"Gregory?"

"Here."

"Hanna?"

"Here."

"Isabelle?"

"Here."

"Mr. Jake?"

"I'm here," I answered, now choosing to take a nap, seeing that I wouldn't need to do anything else. I wasn't really hungry, so I didn't have to worry about getting up to eat.

However, just because I didn't want to eat, didn't mean that everyone would leave me alone. People usually did, but apparently something (read: everything) was different today.

"Jake? We're starting dinner now..." murmured Isabelle, nudging me softly.

"Hmm, okay," I yawned. I didn't pick up my head.

"Isn't Jake going to eat?" asked Isabelle. She sounded a bit confused.

"No, I'm going to sleep," I answered, turning my head towards her and opening my eyes lazily. I was right; she still seemed kinda confused, so I just closed my eyes again and hoped she'd leave me alone.

Don't get me wrong, I liked Isabelle, I just hated it when people fuss over me. It made me feel awkward. Especially when there was actually something wrong (not that there was), because then it made everything worse. Yeah, I knew from experience.

You see, it used to be really easy to make me cry. As a guy, that wasn't really a good thing, so I got labeled "the crybaby." I was spineless, pathetic, and probably the easiest kid to manipulate in my school. That only changed when I entered the fifth grade. There were a few kids in my class who enjoyed picking on the other kids. They were all annoying and stupid. Our teachers liked to keep things "balanced," so naturally, I'd end up paired with at least one of them in all of the group projects we had, and we had a lot.

I guess that year taught me how to stand up for myself. You know, it toughened me up a bit. The last time I ever cried was when my parents died, I just haven't felt much since then, I guess.

"Is Jake anorexic?" Isabelle asked, snapping me out of my train of thought.

"Huh, what? Nah, I'm just lazy," I muttered.

"Too lazy to eat?"

"Yeah, if it makes you feel better, I have a stash of lollypops under my bed," I said.

That was a lie, I didn't keep any candy in my room, but she didn't need to know that.

"Oh, but doesn't Jake want to eat something more than candy?"

"No," I answered, deciding that now was a good time to raise my hand to leave. Otherwise, Isabelle wasn't going to leave me alone. All girls are like that; as soon as they think that something is wrong with you, they'll keep bugging you until they know what it is, and _then_ they'll _try_ to fix it. It was really quite annoying. I also wanted to leave before Linda did, so I could catch her in the hall and not have to worry about being dragged to hang out with her, or being called a perv for being in a girl's room at night.

"Finished already, Jake?" asked Rena.

"Yes, Ma'am," I answered.

"Hmm, you always finish eating so quickly Jake. Is something wrong?" she asked with a concerned tone of voice. It wasn't odd for her to ask me questions like that, in fact, she did it quite often. I guess it was just her nature, she _was_ supposed to be the one taking care of us, after all.

"Nah, I'm just a fast eater, Ma'am."

I don't know why she even bothered asking, I always gave her the same answer every time.

"Okay, you can go," she said, now looking a bit exasperated.

"Hmm, thanks," I said, walking to the door.

It almost felt like a waste of time to sit in the hallway like this. I could've been doing something more interesting, like reading, or playing guitar, but instead I was sitting in the K-T hallway waiting for Linda. She was taking forever too; I'd already watched half the kids in the hallway go into their room. Nothing interesting had occurred yet, but- oh, here comes Near.

I wasn't excepting him to even acknowledge me, but he stopped right in front of me, shuffled his feet, and said "Greetings, F."

"Oh, hey Near," I replied, "What's up?"

"It might be in your best interests to stay away from your room tonight."

O-kayy. Weird.

"I… What are you saying?"

He shuffled on his feet some more before shaking his head, "Goodnight, F."

He continued down the hallway to his room, and when his door softly clicked shut, I was still confused. Why in the world would I want stay away from my room? But Near _was_ the smartest kid in the orphanage, so there _had_ to be some form of truth to the statement. Or maybe Near was also mad that I was in second. He might have wanted to sabotage me by keeping me out of my room after curfew, and then having a teacher check for me.

"Jake?"

It was Linda. If the girl was good at anything, it was having the worst timing.

"Who else would it be? My evil twin?"

"Well, you never know! Have you been waiting for me?" She did that thing where she fluttered her eyelashes like she thought it was cute.

"Not for too long, I was just gonna grab that book and head back to my room. Sleep is important, y'know?"

"Oh, Jake," she giggled, "don't you get enough sleep already? You don't even wake up till just before classes!"

"Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth? Sleep is important times twelve."

"Alright, alright. See you tomorrow then," she laughed, handing me the book.

"Yup. Later."

I decided to ignore Near's strange message.

I was still pretty tired, so I went straight to my room and went straight to bed.

That was usually my schedule: I got bothered by Linda at seven, got out of bed at seven thirty, made it to English by eight, had Math, Science, History, then lunch (which I usually skipped in favor of finishing my homework), went to DT classes, study hall at three, dinner at six, and then I passed out at six thirty. It was a weird schedule, and I wished I didn't have so many classes, but what could I do about it? Briefly, I felt like I was forgetting something, but I brushed it off.

My room was really warm, which was odd, because my room was usually cold, even in the summer. They must've just turned on the heat, to prepare for the oncoming snowstorm.

I sat up slowly as I realized that I wasn't going to be able to sleep well when my room was too warm. I was feeling restless, probably due to the odd things that had happened earlier. I wandered over to my closet and looked for something entertaining to do. I moved a few things around and was startled by something in the corner of my eye. It was a rather plain looking box, around the size of a shoebox, and it was unmarked other than a small, peeling label on the side that read "The Dorks."

I uncovered the box and lifted it out of my closet. The first thing in the box was a cartoon drawing of my artistic friend and me, dressed in some strange get-up that I vaguely remembered being our Halloween costumes one year. Under that, was another drawing, and another, and another, and at the very bottom was a letter and a journal. The letter read:

_James,_

_If you're reading this, than you've gone on some big adventure without us. Rude. Nevertheless, we're required to wish you happy journeying. In this box, we've put a bunch of things you'll probably throw out, because you're a jerk. _

_There's a bunch of drawings from Auburn, Reese has parted with his "precious" Kingdom Hearts disk, Carrie got you exactly three guitar picks, Kasey couldn't think of what to get you, so she made you a banana plushie. Enjoy._

_Keep in touch or we'll steal your socks,_

_Auburn, Kasey, Carrie, and Reese._

_P.S. Don't worry; we'll take care of your dog._

I wondered if they actually kept that promise. Carrie wouldn't have been able to take the dog to whatever orphanage they'd placed her in. Perhaps Reese had taken him; he always did like dogs.

I rifled through the box some more, picking out the video game. Maybe Matt would let me use his playstation. Until then, however, I was oddly… roomstuck.

I walked over to my window and stared out at the night sky. It was one of those days when the moon was bright and it lit up the clouds so that they were an eerie gray color. I had never bothered learning any of the constellations, so it would've been useless for me to try to find them. Besides, the clouds would be covering most of them if I did know where to look. I noticed that the glass on my window was cold, so I assumed that the air outside would be chilly. If I opened the window, bugs might get in. If I kept the window closed, my room would stay warm.

"Hmm," I muttered, trying to decide what to do.

I could just sleep on the windowsill, I realized.

And so I did. I didn't even bother grabbing my blanket, because really, I was far too lazy.

I thought back to dinner, because something was bothering me, but I had no idea what it was. My stomach kept tying itself in knots, and I could hear my heart pounding in my ears. I was really nervous. Did it have to do with Near? Yes, definitely, but it felt like something more.

The only thing really strange other than Near's odd comment, was Emily being nervous. She was usually really happy-go-lucky, and not afraid of anything. Emily's letter was E, so she had the room next to mine. I thought she was a good kid, but only because I knew she had seen me climb out my window before, and she had never told anyone. So I owed her a favor.

Maybe that was it, then. I was nervous because I owed her a favor, and she was looking like she might need it. I sighed. Today had been a long day; I'd ask her about it tomorrow.

* * *

**EDITED: 1-2-13**


	6. Whispers, Emily, and the Fire

_2:04 AM, November 30__th__, 2003. _

**2249/6163/423**

"…Shouldn't be doing this."

"Tch, don't bail…deserves it..."

"Yeah, we've been planning this since…"

"Huh?" I mumbled, opening my eyes just a crack. I glanced at the clock on my bedside table, across the room from my perch on the windowsill. It was around two in the morning, why were there people whispering outside of my door?

"But he's not that bad, really!"

That was a girl's voice, and she sounded kind of distressed. I tried listening harder so I could understand what they were talking about.

"Are you kidding? That kid's been annoying us ever since he got here!"

"You're only saying that because Linda likes him better than you."

"Shut up!" he seemed to forget that he was supposed to be whispering.

"Yeah, you don't have to watch if you don't want to."

It seemed like there were three people in the hallway. One of them was Emily, I could tell by her voice, and the other two were unfamiliar. It seemed as though they were planning to hurt someone, but Emily was backing out of it at the last second.

Now who could the others be? They had to be connected to both Emily and Linda in some way, so I tried to remember who it was that Emily usually hung out with. I thought about it for a moment until two names came to mind. Gregory and Cory. Now that I thought about it, it seemed to fit. Gregory and Cory were some of the boys who hung out in the shed out back. Thus, they were the bad kids who liked to smoke, do drugs, and beat each other up.

But who were they coming after… Well… I thought about it logically. Gregory had mentioned a 'He' so it would have to be a boy in this hallway. There were three boys in this hallway, me, Gregory, and Matt. since Gregory was in the hallway, that leaves two options. Me or Matt. Linda doesn't really hang out with Matt so- "Fucking shit."

A kid like me stood no chance against two older, scarier boys. I had never fought anyone before, and the muscles I had weren't meant for punches, really. I had never gotten beaten up before, either, and the most I'd ever been injured was the burn I had gotten on my back when my house burnt down, and even then, the doctors had me on like a million pain killers, so I barely even felt it.

I remembered that clearly… Perhaps if I had been a smarter then, it wouldn't have happened. I could've predicted it, told my dad to get Ma and run. But I didn't. I was so naïve… I didn't even realize the house was on fire until my bed was lit up, and then Carrie was shoving me out the window, but it was too late. Carrie probably could've been here at Wammy's with me if she hadn't hit her head when she jumped after me. She was at least fifty percent smarter than I was at the time I entered Wammy's house.

Wait a second; calm down, James, it won't do you any good to get off track and panic. Just think for a moment…

"Oh, duh, the window!" I whispered to myself.

I got off the windowsill and pulled open the window. I climbed down easily, and when my feet hit the solid ground, I sighed in relief.

"Gotcha, dork."

I froze. That couldn't be…? I turned around slowly, already guessing what I would see. There, standing and holding up a cell phone, was Gregory.

How had I not noticed that?

Emily and Cory were also out there, I noted. The situation was not looking good for me. I was outnumbered, and those guys had more experience then me when it came to fighting.

I could feel a bit of anger and annoyance now. They had tricked me. ME. You know, I took pride in being a step ahead of everyone. The fact that someone had cut off all of my escapes and backed me into a corner didn't sit well with me.

"What do you guys want?" I said, sighing in annoyance.

"You know, I thought we were pretty clear before. Or are you to stupid to remember?" Cory sneered.

"No, I remember, but I wanna hear it straight from you."

The truth was that I was stalling. They may have backed me into a corner, but I did have a plan, even if the plan was dumb and probably wouldn't work all that well.

"Tch, we're gonna beat you up, idiot."

"Why me? Are you people insane? I'm the director. I make the casting decisions around here."

"Hmph," Cory grumbled, "because you're an annoying bastard, that's why."

"Hey, I take pride in being an annoying bastard," I paused for a moment, pretending to think, "Do you guys take pride in being egotistical thugs?"

"You brat!" Gregory hissed, losing his temper.

Well shit. I hadn't anticipated how scary he would look, running at me like that. I almost froze, but managed to pull myself together. I need to get away.

I watched him run at me for another moment, but then I rolled to the side, landing in a crouch. Gregory tried to turn after me, but found himself lacking the flexibility. He lost his balance and fell to the ground, so I took my chance and sprinted straight past Cory and Emily, running towards the back of the building.

I may not have be the smartest or the fastest kid at Wammy's but I knew exactly I could and couldn't do. What I couldn't do was fight Gregory and his gang, scale up the ten foot tall brick wall to my window, outrun them, or go in the front door (it was still passed curfew, that was not a thing that had changed). Lucky for me, I knew a place where the windows were closer to the ground. Of course, I was aware of the flaw in this plan, but I was hoping for a miracle.

Of course, I wasn't that lucky, and as I turned the corner to where the K-T hallway would be, all the windows appeared to be closed.

Damn.

On top of that, I could hear Cory gaining on me. He was faster than I thought he would be. Maybe I should just give up? Should I scream?

No, what the fuck am I thinking? Worst idea, worst idea, worst idea. I can't live my life giving up when it gets tough. If I did that, how would I ever solve difficult cases as a detective? Why was I thinking like this? It occurred to me that for the first time in a long while, I was feeling the cold grasp of fear start to cloud my mind, which made it nearly impossible for me to think.

The next thing I knew, I was on the ground with a larger boy on top of me, pounding his fist on my face. And it _hurt. _But it was like I was paralyzed, I couldn't move, couldn't resist.

However, I did manage to scream out a particularly loud "Fuck my life!"

And then something clicked in my head, and I tried to roll over, to stop this guy from destroying my face, but this was the wrong thing to do. Trying to fight back made me realize that I was useless. Try as I may, Cory was still heavier than me, and I wasn't strong enough that I could roll over while he was in the middle of punching my face.

I could taste metal in my mouth, and my heart was beating hard in my ears.

Briefly, I wondered if I would die like that: helpless to resist, and very, very afraid.

The thought was cut short as I felt Cory being thrown off of me. I continued to lay on the ground, suddenly feeling very, very confused. What just happened? I didn't know, but I did know that my face was throbbing, and that someone was yelling. Behind my eyes I saw the red-amber of fire, and I whimpered before I could control myself.

**EDITED: 1-2-13**


	7. Dirt, Eyesight, and the Paper Bag

**2249/6163/423**

_Thump thump. _

"What the hell man, you can't just go around beating people up! I have half a mind to tell Roger on you!" The voice was yelling. I could feel the beginnings of a panic attack biting at the edge of my mind. Why was he being so loud?

"_James, you've gotta jump!"_

"Like you're one to talk! I thought you wanted to beat up this kid too; it was all you could talk about yesterday!"

_Thump thump._

"Well I changed my mind! You touch him again I'll make sure he's not the only one bleeding!"

"_It's not high enough to kill you, promise! Just go!"_

Shit… was I really bleeding?

"_I can't…"_

**Stop it; you're okay… it never happened.**

I brought my hand up to my nose. I didn't keep it there for long, as the contact was painful. I wondered if I had broken it. Would that leave a permanent mark? Perhaps I would have to wear a paper bag over my face for the rest of my life. I'd tell them it was part of my religion.

"I'd like to see you try!" -The sound of flesh hitting flesh- "Ow, fuck!"

"Shit, Cory, let's go!"

"Oh please, like hell I'm letting you get away!"

And then there was the sound of pounding footsteps as all three boys ran away from me. Idly, I wondered where Emily had gone off to. Maybe she was lingering around me, but I couldn't open my eyes to see.

"Yo, man, you okay?" This question seemed like it was directed at me, but when I opened my mouth to speak, it just caused my face to hurt more, so instead I groaned. "I'll take that as a no. Come on, I'll help you to the nurse."

I didn't even know we had a nurse. Then again, I probably should have known. I was glad that… Matt, I think? Had come to help me out. Even if I could see, I wouldn't have known where to go.

"Dude, your face looks like shit. What did you do to make them so mad?" Matt asked. He put his hand on my back, gently pushing me forward. "This way to the door."

My face was still throbbing, but I decided he deserved an answer. "'Ere 'ealous," I murmured, my words coming out slurred.

"Jealous? Okay, but how did they get you outside anyways? You don't seem the type to be wandering the grounds after hours… There are stairs here."

I made a sound of recognition along the lines of "Hn," and attempted to climb the stairs following Matt's careful instructions, all the while ignoring the burning pain on my face.

"You're about to walk into the doorframe," Matt laughed.

"Ser'sly?" Immediately, I reached my arms in front of me, waving them around like a blind man, which essentially I was, searching for the doorframe. Matt didn't seem all that interested in helping me, laughing as I tried to find a solid wall. Eventually, I gave up and started taking small, cautious steps forward.

"Jesus Christ, you're slow," Matt muttered from somewhere to my left. Distracted for a moment, my foot caught on a bump, sending me flying forward. I landed on my hands and knees, and briefly thanked whatever god existed for the fact that I hadn't landed on my face. I supposed I'd tripped over the doorway, as my hands had found the cold linoleum of the orphanage hallway.

Matt was cracking up, now standing somewhere in front of me. "You okay?" he laughed, "Maybe I should just carry you…"

"'Leas do…"

He only laughed harder, but stopped suddenly. "Woah, shit… I didn't realize it was that bad…"

"Hm?"

"You're dripping blood everywhere; I couldn't tell when we were outside… Thought it was dirt," he stated. I was starting to panic again. Was I really dripping blood everywhere? Shit, what if I really did have permanent damage? "C'mere…"

Quite suddenly, I was being lifted off the ground. I started to resist, but then the pounding in my head got worse. All of a sudden, I was finding it very hard to think.

I wasn't even aware I was losing consciousness until I woke up.

The first thing I realized when I came to, was that I wasn't in my own bed.

The next thing, was that although I didn't feel any pain, I couldn't see out of my left eye.

Well shit.

I sat up, moving slowly so that I could monitor for any signs of pain. I didn't feel anything. That's a weird feeling, you know, nothing. It's like you don't exist, I could pinch myself, and I wouldn't feel it. Which was weird. I was thinking slowly too, which led me to the conclusion that I was on many, many painkillers. I hated that feeling.

I noticed a bit of tingling in my hands, which, upon closer inspection, were covered in small scratches. So the painkillers were wearing off. Good.

My next task was to glance around the room and figure out exactly where I was. It was a spacious room, with many beds. Ah, must be the infirmary. It looked like it might be morning, so perhaps I could—

"Ah! Thank goodness you're awake!"

I must have jumped ten feet in the air.

"Gah, holy shit! Don't do that!" I sputtered without thinking. The woman who startled me was a small redhead with short hair. She was dressed in black pants, and a light blue shirt. She was holding a clipboard and had a stethoscope around her neck, like all the fake doctors in any movie did.

"Well, at least we know your vocal cords work!" the woman chirped, "But I'd suggest watching your language," she winked.

"Who are you?" I asked as I ran a hand through my hair, which had somehow become tangled.

"Who am I? Gosh, Jake, I thought you were supposed to be smart! I'm the nurse, obviously!"

This woman probably thought she was being hilarious. I could be a smartass too… Wait, I'm being unfair; I just hated doctors.

"Well, just because I'm smart doesn't mean I want to figure out who the strange woman in my non-bedroom is."

She laughed, "I'm the N, of the first generation, but most people just call me Nadine!"

"'Kay, I'm just gonna stick with 'strange woman in my non-bedroom.'" I flopped back down onto my bed with my arms crossed behind my head. "So, what'cha need, strange woman in my non-bedroom?"

"All jokes aside, F, you've gotten yourself in some serious trouble," the woman's voice had gone from light and cheery to hard and serious. F? It really must have been serious, then; most people only used your letter if it's really important.

"What kind of trouble?"

"I don't know, you tell me," she inquired, taking a seat in a chair next to the bed, her pen poised over her clipboard to write. I thought for a moment about what to say. I was going to give her a serious answer, but I changed my mind at the last second.

"Well, as far back as I remember, I always wanted to be a gangster."

Nadine sighed, "You're not taking this seriously."

"No, ma'am."

"And why is that?"

"…"

Because it made me feel better, I guess.

**EDITED: 1-2-13**


	8. Memories, Gymnastics, and the Toy

_December 2__nd__, 2003._

**2247/6161/421**

Throughout the course of the day, I was poked and prodded and asked many questions. She was asking me questions about my classes, the people at the orphanage, and about recent events to check for any signs of brain damage. She couldn't ask me about my birthday, my birthplace, or my name, because that was all classified information, so I went and thought through it on my own.

My name was James Keen, but I was called Jake— to protect my identity. Jake is a partial anagram of my name, "Ja" comes from James, and "ke" from Keen. I was born in Marlboro, Massachusetts, but I grew up mostly in Los Angeles. My birthday was January 26th, 1989. I am fifteen years old, turning sixteen this coming January. I had four siblings, two older, and two younger. I have been dead to them for around two years. The last date I remember was November 29th, 2003, or the 30th, actually, since it was past midnight.

Everything seemed right. The swelling in my face had gone down (strangely enough, it didn't seem all that swollen in the first place), but it looked like someone had taken green and purple eye shadow and put it all over my face. The pain meds had worn off hours ago, leaving my face sore, with a split lip and two missing teeth (one canine, the other was one of my molars), a broken nose (snapped back into place while I was sleeping, but it seemed a bit crooked to me), plus a black eye- which I still couldn't see out of. Before you freak out, it was just swollen shut. I'd probably be able to see when I could open it.

"Jake, would you do me a favor sweetie?"

"I guess…"

"Would you take off your shirt for me?"

I gave her an odd look. "Umm, why?"

"Just need to check for more injuries is all!"

"No."

"Please?"

"I'm fine. Can I leave?"

"Not until I see your back and make sure you're okay, mister!"

"No."

"Why not? You're being defensive," she stated, "It's making me think you're hurt and don't want to tell me!"

"That's not it at all, there just isn't a point." I clarified, attempting to frown but stopping because my lip hurt like hell.

"F…" the nurse glared.

"That's not going to work," I sighed, "I have an idea; I'll just prove I'm fine and then you can let me go."

"Oh? And how are you going to do that?" she asked, putting her hands on her hips.

"Like this."

I rolled off of the bed lazily. I stood for a second, stretching. Ms. Nadine gave me an expectant look, then, without warning, I did a full on back bend, with my hands on the ground. I flipped up into a handstand and then went back to standing in one fluid motion.

Nadine was looking at me with a dumbstruck expression plastered on her face, so I did a few cartwheels for kicks and giggles.

You see, at Wammy's House, as part of our Detective training courses, we were required to take up a sport. It was something L had decided to add to the curriculum around a year ago, for whatever strange reason. I suspected it had something to do with Beyond Birthday, a criminal that few people realized actually came from this orphanage. I had decided to take up gymnastics, due to the fact that I had always been flexible, and I didn't feel much like running around. I had thought about learning karate, but opted out of it because _hello,_ gymnastics equals cute girls wearing pretty much nothing.

Of course, I probably should've just stuck with karate because holy shit gymnastics is tough. Like, I've seen kids break bones and pull muscles and not be able to move for weeks. We'd been extremely lucky that no one had broken their neck yet. It's like twenty percent more dangerous than any other sport. Lucky for us, though, we had some damn smart trainers…

"Okay, okay, you've made your point. I was just worried," she giggled, "But it really does look like you're A-okay! You should be able to attend classes tomorrow, but I don't want to see you playing soccer or hockey or whatever sport you boys play!"

I frowned. "Okay."

One-hundred percent lying. She was insane if she thought I was going to skip out on practice. If I wasn't dedicated, then I was far more likely to accidently kill myself. So really, it was for my own good.

"Alright, great! Make sure you come and see me tomorrow so I can give you some medicine," she looked at me for another moment then nodded her head, "And I'll probably have to take you out to a dentist tomorrow to figure out what to do about your teeth."

"Out? Like, literally out?" I asked, momentarily surprised. It was a rare occurrence for any of us to be off orphanage grounds. Kids at Wammy's usually only saw the outside world once a year, and then on the television.

"Well, yeah," she looked kind of embarrassed for a moment, "usually we'd have a dentist come here, but I've got some stuff to pick up anyways… And it's not like you'd draw a ton of attention."

"What kind of stuff?" I asked, curious.

She glanced up at the clock, her cheeks flushed red, "Well, if you head down now, you could still make it on time to dinner!"

I stared at her strangely "O-kaay, I'll be on my way then."

Boy, was I looking forward to this. Note the extreme sarcasm, please. Not only would Emily be present, and most likely angry because both Gregory and Cory were in the infirmary because of Mello (in a separate room, thank god), but I'd most likely face a metric fuckton of questions about what happened. Not to mention Near would also be there, and even if he hadn't heard the gossip already, he'd know that I completely disregarded his warning like an idiot.

Speaking of warnings, how did he know they were coming after me? Could he have overheard something? Why not just tell me flat out what was going on? Was he testing me? Then why would he have even said anything? _No_, if Near was testing me, he would want me to figure out to stay away from my room all on my own. After all, I _could've _put it all together had I taken the time to think a bit more. So it wasn't a test. But then— was this some sort of game to him? A game that I'd obviously lost? Perhaps. Near always did like his toys…

But the point was that I was maybe a little bit embarrassed that I had lost the fight. Actually, I hadn't even put up a fight. Mello had. On the bright side, I guess, Mello didn't want to kill me anymore.

It was odd walking through the empty hallways and only being able to see out of one eye. It was making me a bit nervous, so I was turning my head back and forth quite often. I was also walking slower than normal (a difficult feat, let me tell you that), and by the time I made it to the dining room, I was two minutes late and the doors were closed. Bracing myself, I pushed open the door and shuffled in sluggishly. The entire room went dead silent.

* * *

**EDITED: 2-1-13**


	9. December, Avoidance, and the Cute Girl

**2247/6161/421**

"Umm… Hey?" I mumbled, very much a repeat of earlier in the week.

"Mr. Jake… Nadine said she wasn't expecting you up until much later in the month…"

"Later in the month? Welp, guess that didn't work out too well, sir," he gave me a strange look, "I promise it's not as bad as it seems; you're just going to have to deal with me a bit earlier than planned," I shrugged. A couple of kids in the room chuckled, but they were silenced by the glare Roger sent their way.

"Mr. Jake… I don't think you quite understand the severity of the situation…" he said with his eyebrows furrowed.

My blood ran cold. Did Mello get hurt? Was I going to be kicked out? Was I hurt worse than I'd originally assumed? After all, I could be, because I literally can't feel anything on my upper back because of the burn… Or perhaps I'd been out for longer than I'd thought? No, if I had been in a coma or some weird movie cliché like that, it would've taken a hell of a lot more time to move around. So what was the big deal? "Um, I guess not. What's going on?"

"We thought you were going to have brain damage and not wake up or something, dude," Matt called out. I had to turn my body a bit to see him because he was on my left side, but I tried not to make it too obvious. He seemed to have been playing some handheld game before I'd walked in, but had paused it. His goggles, which were usually worn on his forehead, were now covering his eyes.

"Matt! That's no way to go about telling potentially traumatizing news to someone!" Rena chastised, "Do you want him to end up back in the infirmary?"

"Well no, but someone has to-"

"That all?" I sighed in relief, interrupting Matt. "I thought you were gonna tell me someone died or something," I paused for a moment, "Or even worse, that I'd lost my place in second!" I threw my hand over my heart in an overly-dramatic fashion, like I was going to have a heart attack. This earned a few out right laughs, but the room was still mostly silent. "I _wasn't _out for a long time, was I? What's today?" I asked, now slightly worried.

"It's the second of December, dumbass. You've only been out for like two days." Mello grumbled. His arms were crossed over his chest, and he was glaring at a spot on the floor. He was also sporting a nice bruise over his left eye, but it seemed to have healed some.

I decided to intervene before Roger could comment on Mello's colorful word choice. "Alright, not bad! Two days is like nothing! Potential crisis adverted! So uh, dinner time?"

"Er, right," Roger mumbled, shaking his head and returning to the staff table. "Odd kid…" he mumbled so quietly I almost didn't catch it.

I snorted, and turned to head to my seat. I immediately noticed that Isabelle was looking at me in a concerned manner. _Great, the questioning begins…_

"Is Jake okay?" she asked, no less than three seconds after I had sat down.

"Yeah I'm fine; my face hurts like a bitch though," I commented, scanning the table for good looking food. Steak and potatoes? I think yes.

Isabelle giggled, "You're funny Jake…"

Ah, here it comes. The inevitable 'what happened' question. Three, two, one-

"But what was it that Jake did?" she asked.

I then proceeded to shovel food in my mouth so that I didn't have to provide an explanation. Isabelle eyed me with a strange look.

"I thought you didn't like food?"

I swallowed, "I'm a growing boy; of course I like food."

"But you said before…"

"I lied."

Just kidding, I was lying. I don't hate food, but I'm not overly fond of it either. If eating wasn't needed to live, I probably wouldn't eat at all (Unless, of course, it was spicy food. I loved spicy food).

"Oh… But really, Jake, what happened to you?" she looked at me expectantly. I was about to answer her, but I felt something hit the side of my head. It was a crumpled up piece of paper, which seemed to have come from Mello and Matt's side of the table. I raised an eyebrow and opened the note. It was written in messy, large lettering.

_come and sit with us you ungrateful ass_

_matt_

I smiled, despite the pain in my lip. I took a pen from out of my sweater pocket and scrawled back in neat, slanted handwriting:

_Of course; friends who bruise together cruise together. Give me three seconds._

_Jake_

I tossed the note to Matt, aiming for his goggles and hitting spot on.

"What was that?" Isabelle asked, turning her head sideways.

"Matt and Mello have coerced me into joining the mafia, no big deal," I replied, winking.

She looked like she wasn't sure if I was serious or not. "Jake, about those bruises…?"

I sighed. Guess it couldn't be avoided. "Alright so basically, these jerks Cory, Gregory, and Emily decide they're going to beat me up. Cory was probably the ringleader, because I think he was jealous of me for hanging out with Linda? Something stupid like that. Mello and Matt just happened to be near by, so Mello attacked Cory and Gregory. Emily probably ran away, and Matt took me to the infirmary. That's all."

"Uwaaa, Jake, that's terrible!" she exclaimed. She covered her mouth moments later, as if she was afraid someone would call her out for speaking above a whisper.

"Eh, it's fine," I shrugged, raising one eyebrow. She didn't seem to hear me, and her eyes were wide in adoration.

"And Jake doesn't even look nervous with Emily only a few seats down… he is so brave!"

And then she did something I wasn't expecting her to do: she turned sideways and flung her arms around me.

I don't think you quite understand. She _hugged_ me.

She.

Hugged.

Me.

Geez, the last time someone had hugged me- no, the last time someone had touched me in a friendly manor- had been two years ago. At first, I thought Isabelle had been moving to strangle me, but nope, that wasn't it.

I just kind of sat there for a second, with my arms raised almost comically in the air. I imagine the look on my face was somewhere in between gaping fish and dislocated jaw bone. Girls, man, how do they work?

Around two seconds later, which felt a lot longer to me, I awkwardly patted Isabelle on the back, really wanting the strange moment to be done with. Geez, what would Matt think?

Wait, why do I care?

_Probably because I don't want to be perceived as a ladies man. _Yeah, that likely wouldn't go over well with anyone. Plus, Isabelle was kind of cute I guess, so all the guys would be pissed if they thought I was dating her.

"Ehh, not really," I muttered

Isabelle didn't let go until (what seemed like) a long time had passed. "Oh Jake, you don't have to be modest," she whispered.

"No, really," I laughed nervously, ruffling the back of my hair, "Um, ah, I have to go."

"Go where?" she asked curiously.

"Matt wants me to sit with him…"

"Oh, it's great that Jake is making friends," she flushed a beet red color, "I'll talk to Jake tomorrow?"

"Yeah sure," I shrugged, before darting across the dining hall, anxious to leave the awkward situation behind.

* * *

**EDITED: 2-1-13**


	10. Seating, Screeching, and the Reason

**2247/6161/421**

Matt and Mello were seated directly next to each other. I briefly entertained the idea that their friendship started over a silly fight over food, because both of them seemed to be really into the "stuff myself and never get fat" thing. At the moment, Mello seemed to be having a rather animated conversation with Matt (who was playing his game and likely not paying attention, only nodding at the proper times).

Across from Matt was where Linda sat. She was next to her friend Megan, whose letter was W. I didn't know much about the dark skinned girl, except that she was quite the mathematician, and that she usually scored higher than even Near did in Math, despite being a terrible test taker.

Near probably should also have been sitting in that area, but instead, he sat at the end of the table next to Sage, a quiet boy who usually found himself on the upper end of the rankings. This was most likely done to avoid trouble with Mello. No one else of importance sat there, as the other kids had friends to talk with at meal times.

There was a spot next to Linda available, probably because this side of the table was missing Gregory, who was large and well muscled because he played "American football" (Quotations because I'm American, and I've been called out for "weird American phrases" so many times that it's not funny anymore [Pants, everyone. Or closets. Or sweaters. Or erasers. {No matter how many times you tell me, I'm not going to say anything else}]), which was amusing, because Gregory was from Russia, as far as I knew.

So I slid into the seat next to Linda, and diagonal from Matt just in time to hear the tail end of Mello's complaint.

"- and I mean that seriously! Roger has another thing coming if he thinks giving _us _detentions cause of Greg's dumbass plan is a really great idea!" Mello finished, his cheeks flushed from all the yelling he'd been doing.

"Actually Mello, your detention was for being out after curfew," Megan smiled a smile that could only be described as a smirk. I didn't notice it before, probably because it seemed normal, but she must've been from somewhere in America, because she didn't have an accent.

"Shut up bitch, I don't give two shits about your opinion," Mello replied through a mouthful of potatoes.

"Rude," she rolled her eyes. "That's not what you were saying last night mister 'Quick, tell me how to hide from Roger! Praise the good lord, Jesus Christ, Megan you're a life saver!'" she did an impression of Mello with an exaggerated English accent and a high pitched voice.

Mello slammed his fist on the table "Hey, you can't make fun of me for my religion!"

"Can't I?"

He glowered at her, "And I don't have a high pitched voice like that!"

She shrugged, "Well I wouldn't know; I'm tone deaf. I just assumed someone so feminine looking…" she trailed off, again smiling that odd smile.

"God. Fucking. Damn it!" Mello yelled, slamming his head on the table repeatedly.

"Oh Megan, you don't have to be so rude," Linda commented, her eyes fixed on Mello, "You're not even tone deaf either…"

"It's all in the joke, Lindy."

"Megan," Linda groaned.

"I know, I know. Heard it a thousand times. 'You don't have to be mean to be funny!'" she imitated. "But honestly, Mello's already said he doesn't give two shits."

Linda shook her head and sighed. "Whatever Meg."

Megan shrugged and then leaned around Linda to look at me. "Hey there, you're Jake, right? We worked together on a project once! I wouldn't expect you to remember that though," she laughed.

"No, I do. It was History, right?"

"Yeah, American history, if you want to be specific," she smiled.

I smiled back at her, "and we both thought it was ridiculous because we'd already studied it."

"Ha, yeah. I didn't think it was that memorable."

I laughed, "Of course it was! Any project where the line 'so the colonists said 'Let there be tea!' and fed the fish expensive taxed leaf juice' is used, is a good project."

"Oh yeah, you are the boy who likes to quote everything, I'd forgotten," she chuckled.

"My tender American heart is offended by that. I might actually have to start quoting everything now. As a wise woman once said, 'it's all in the joke.'"

"You know, I like you kid, you should sit here more often."

Maybe I would.

"Jake, I have to ask you something," Linda stated. I was 99% sure she was about to ask what happened, and commended her briefly on her patience. Sarcasm, by the way.

"Shoot."

She looked nervous now, looking uneasily around the section of the table. Both Matt and Mello had stopped what they were doing to listen in. "I heard you went after Gregory and Cory because they were both picking on Emily."

Well, that was news. "That's not a question."

Linda made a sound of annoyance. "Can't you take something seriously for once, Jake? You're a genius, you know what I meant. Is it true?"

Everyone seemed to be holding their breath.

"I don't know, is it?" I knew I probably shouldn't be antagonizing people, but it had been a long day.

"Jake!" Linda was starting to look angry.

I sighed, "I don't see why it matters. It already happened, right?"

"Jake, really! I'm worried about you! Could you please just be honest? For once!" She was yelling now, and it was the first time I'd seen Linda legitimately angry. Usually she was just annoyed.

The entire room seemed to be staring. Fuck, she needed to calm down.

"Well you shouldn't be worried. I'm okay, honestly."

"But what if it happens again? Did you go looking for trouble Jake? Because that's what I heard! Come on, did it happen or not?"

"Why don't you ask yourself a question, Linda. When have I _ever _gone looking for trouble?" I asked, annoyed. Was she insane? Of course that didn't happen. Why in God's name would I go _looking _for trouble? That's the exact_ opposite_ of what I'd do.

She really, really shouldn't have been attracting attention to me.

"Well… I don't know Jake. I really don't. All you ever do is blow people off, and it's _not _healthy. How am I supposed to know what you're attempting to do by that? I honestly have no idea what goes on in your head." She was standing up now, screaming at me. The adults were ignoring it. Shouldn't they be doing something? It was freaking me out. I hadn't been screamed at like that for a while… I didn't like it.

"Yo, Linda, step off," Matt commented quietly, looking at me.

"No! Not until he answers my question!" she screeched.

Quite suddenly, I was filled with the overwhelming urge to either puke or yell back at her to get her to stop. My heart was beating at what felt like impossible speeds, and I was afraid it might defy everything about anatomy I'd ever learned and just beat straight out of my chest.

"Stop it," I tried to scream, but it came out as more of a strangled whisper. "Stop yelling at me," I tried again. This time she seemed to hear me, but she just continued to glare at me with piercing brown eyes.

"Then _perhaps _you should consider actually answering my questions."

What was the question again? She just kept staring at me… And I seemed to be growing more afraid the more time passed... I needed to calm myself down somehow…

"Linda, I'm sorry. Please sit down." I wasn't even looking at her anymore. My eyes were glued to the ground.

"Answer the question first."

I almost felt like crying. Almost. I didn't want to be perceived as weak anymore.

"I… No, Linda, I didn't go searching for trouble. I never go searching for trouble…"

"And that wasn't some kind of stupid quote, right?" I could feel her looking suspiciously at me.

"Uh, no. Sit down now?" or better yet, leave.

Linda sat down and sighed, "Sorry Jake, I don't know what came over me…"

Here was where I was supposed to be like 'that's okay, Linda,' but I couldn't quite bring myself to do it.

There was a pause in the moment where nothing seemed to happen, but people were still waiting with baited breath, as if they expected something to happen. And something did happen.

"_Oh please,_" Mello growled, "like you've never seen an argument before. Go back to your dinner." He sent an evil look to every corner of the room.

'The Grinch, Cast Away, Mission: Impossible II, Gladiator, The Perfect storm… Or was it What Woman Want?' I started to count down the top movies from the year 2000, in order to calm myself down. "Yeah, I'm sure number five was 'What Woman Want.'"

"Err, what?" Mello asked, looking at me strangely. "You sure there isn't something wrong with your head?"

"Movies, man, they're great. Culture in general is great. Speaking of culture, has anything interesting happened in the past 48ish hours?"

Matt and Mello shared a look that said 'typical Jake.'

Whether it was pity for my perceived lack of a back-bone, or admiration for my ability to brush things off, _that _was how I was unlucky enough to become the idiot tag-along to a skilled gamer and an angry blond.

* * *

**EDITED: 2-2-13**


	11. In Circumstance and in Secrets

**PART TWO: LYING ON THE FLOOR**

**2247/6161/421**

Blonds had a tendency to be really troublesome, I noted. Perhaps it had something to do with the prejudice that all blonds were stupid; maybe it fueled some sort of deep inner hatred for anyone and anything, causing either an extreme case of self-hate combined with denial, or an even worse case of permanent PMS.

Or maybe it was just circumstance.

Either way, the blonds I knew were all troublesome to the point of insanity.

Exhibit A: Mello. He was always angry. Always. It didn't matter what was happening, he was angry.

Exhibit B: Jake. I honestly don't know what was up with this kid; one moment he was contently sleeping, and then the next he was provoking people known to be incredibly violent, and then pretending he didn't do it. Therefore, I've come to the conclusion that he must either hate himself a whole awful lot, or is incredibly stupid.

Exhibit C: Linda's hair was sort of blonde, I guess, and she was also crazy. Usually she was pretty chill, like "hey guys, I'm Linda and I'm chiller than a naked polar bear," but sometimes she flipped the fuck out in a manner completely disproportionate to the matter at hand. So, obviously, she must be bottling up her anger all the time, leading to spurts of anger that sort of make you go "Yep, that Linda, she's a right sleeping dragon."

And it was just my luck that all three of them happened to be associated with me. Mello was my best friend, Linda sat with us at lunch, and now that Mello had become sort of quasi-friends with that Jake kid, he would probably hang around too.

If you need me to simplify this further, it definitely meant that I had less of a chance at staying sane than if I'd decided to play horror video games non-stop for a week (not saying that I've done that or anything but umm [My record is four days {I regret nothing}]).

I suppose it was okay though; after all, things would get boring if they never changed.

But that still didn't mean I was okay with Linda going off on Jake as if she had been called Zelda one too many times. Not cool. I mean, he was obviously flipping his shit; she didn't need to rub it in. Honestly, the kid looked like someone had murdered his dog.

Actually, for all we knew, that could've happened. Like, I'm aware that there are kids who smuggle pets in, and are smart enough to get away with it. There was one kid, Fred, who'd kept a pet snake in his room for three years until it somehow managed to get itself stuck in the plumbing. There were a few people who found that to be absolutely hilarious, for whatever reason, and the snake was actually never found. I was hoping that one of these days it would end up in Roger's room, because _that_ would be hilarious.

However, Jake seemed more like a cat person than a dog one, really. He was easily startled, so a dog suddenly barking at something would probably give him a heart attack, and it seemed to me like he was too lazy to walk a dog—definitely a cat person.

Of course, that didn't even really matter, because Linda shouldn't have flipped out on him anyways. It was a known fact that half of the kids at Wammy's, if not more, had some sort of mental issue. Therefore, it wouldn't be that far of a stretch to assume Jake was dealing with something like that too. Plus, the kid just got himself beat up; of course he was going to be shaky. You don't yell at shaky people; it's just not a good idea.

Surprisingly, or perhaps not surprisingly, he seemed to bounce right back. He immediately started asking about the events that had occurred in the past two days.

"Yeah, I'm sure number five was 'What Woman Want.'"

The comment seemed to come out of nowhere. Was that a movie or something?

"Err, what?" Mello asked, staring at Jake with his 'seriously dude, how much pot did you smoke' look. "You sure there isn't something wrong with your head?"

"Movies, man, they're great," he paused, "Culture in general is great. Speaking of culture, has anything interesting happened in the past 48ish hours?"

"Nothing that interesting," Mello grumbled, pulling a chocolate bar seemingly out of thin air, snapping it obnoxiously in his mouth.

"'Nothing that interesting?'" I replied, bewildered. "Dude, criminals start dropping dead for no apparent reason, and you call that 'not great'? Maybe you should consider getting _your _head checked out."

"Woah woah woah, wait," Jake commented, sitting straight up in his seat. "What's this about dropping dead? How many? Where from?"

"Hundreds of people, from all over," Megan answered. "Spooky, right?"

"Oh please, it's probably just a government conspiracy, or something." Mello rolled his eyes, "Either that or it's a blessing from God."

He was obviously being sarcastic, but I was honestly not sure how he expected anyone but me to know that. See, Mello was an especially troublesome angry blond in it that his particular brand of humor had to do with being smart, and knowing his beliefs and personality.

For example, Mello firmly believed that God left all humans to their own devices, and wouldn't return until it was time for the end to come. He thought that God was up there, watching us like we were a television show, seeing us but not interacting (that is, until it was time for us to die). Personally, I'd like to think that if there was a god up there, he would be doing more of a Sims type thing, rather than just watching. Maybe like with "free will" turned on, or something.

Basically, by saying that all these criminals dying was a blessing from God, he was really saying "Shit, man, I have no clue how this is happening, and because I have no clue, we should really drop the subject."

Another thing that was probably notable: whenever Mello says "government conspiracy" he's interested in whatever it is.

In case you need clarification, the combination of "government conspiracy" and "blessing from God" meant that Mello wanted to know more about what was going on, but he didn't know anything right now, so we should stop asking lest we make him look stupid.

"Blessing? Probably not. All people have the chance to do good, which they, you know, can't do when they're dead. To have once been a criminal is no disgrace. To remain a criminal is the disgrace," Jake added, yawning lazily halfway through his sentence.

"Okay, did you just quote Malcolm X? I thought you were only into Disney movies and weird ass musicals." I raised an eyebrow.

"Oh please, everyone knows that the more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go."

"Good lord, please make it stop," Mello uttered.

"But are you being serious though?" Jake asked.

"Yeah, they are. People are calling him Kira," answered Linda. There was no sign of her ever being pissed, and it was kind of really strange. Told ya', sleeping dragon.

"Jesus fuck, this is like some serious sci-fi shit up in here," Jake stated, making some kind of vague gesture with his hands. Probably an American thing.

"Yeah, all we need is aliens and we're set," Megan commented.

"Hey, don't knock on the alien theory—how do you think electricity happened?" Jake asserted.

Ah, at least Jake's sarcasm was obvious.

"You're right. That had to be aliens. There is literally no other explanation," Megan remarked.

"Agreed," I nodded, never looking up from my game.

Now seemed like an opportune time to get back to playing Mario—who else was going to save all those dinosaurs?

I had gotten skilled enough at gaming that it was almost too easy to hold conversations, eat, and play all at the same time. Hell, I'd even mastered the skill of lighting a cigarette while fighting boss battles (hella sweet, I know).

Perhaps it was something to do with being a 'genius' or maybe it was just the lack of sugar in comparison to everyone in this orphanage, but I happened to be third iin my class. Crazy, right, the weird kid with the even weirder goggles, a genius? Who would've guessed?

I'll tell you a secret though; I was a master hacker.

No, seriously, I was the best hacker in England, probably even the world.

Seriously, stop laughing.

How, you ask? Well, most kids in Wammy's weren't even aware of this, but if you're in the top three of the rankings, they pull you out of your normal DT classes. Then, they test you for talents, and give you individualized instruction based on that. I had been trained in hacking since I was nine, and I'd surpassed my teacher a long time ago.

So, the top three (four?) kids in this orphanage all had special abilities. I was a hacker, Mello was a manipulator, and Near— solved puzzles? I don't even know; he was kind of weird. Since Jake was now in the top three, he'd probably have to learn something too. If I had any ability to choose, I'd probably put him in a self defense class, because the image of Jake all covered in blood is now forever imbedded into my mind. That was the downfall to being a genius— you never forgot anything.

The way things were looking, though, I'd say he was probably destined for reconnaissance. I mean, the kid was the equivalent of a walking, talking, pop culture reference; if Roger didn't see that, then he was probably senile.

Oh god, I could see it now—it'd be like a repeat of _Aiber._ I felt a shiver run down my spine— _Please_ for the love of all things digital, _don't_ ask me about Aiber.

Geez, you asked, didn't you? God damn it.

Well, Aiber used stay in this orphanage as a teacher, and he was a con-man. There was nothing wrong with that in particular, just _Aiber. _He taught French, and, to make a long story short, he conned me into admitting that my real name was Mail Jeevas— in French. This managed to piss off Rodger, let everyone in the fourth generation at the time know my name, get me sent to "how not to be easily manipulated" classes for three years, _and_ get me detentions for an entire two months (which is where I met Mello, by the way).

Those detentions were _not_ pleasant. Neither were the "how not to be easily manipulated" classes.

Basically, the entire thing just sucked, and so I have terrible childhood memories linked to con-men, specifically con-men by the name of "Aiber".

Maybe being friends with a con-man would be useful though—after all, not every piece of information can be found on the internet— just most of it.

"You know, you promised me earlier you'd let me paint you, Megan," Linda stated.

"Did I?"

"Yes, and since you're done eating, you should let me do that now!" Linda chirped.

"Hn, yeah, sure," Megan agreed. She turned to Jake and rolled her eyes, "Welp, looks like I should probably leave. Nice um, speaking to you briefly, I guess? Laters."

"Goodnight, Jake, Matt, Mello."

"Night," Jake replied. He was the only one who did, because both me and Mello were preoccupied (Mello was stuffing his face, and I was playing video games).

"Sorry bout Linda," I casually remarked, "You were already aware that she was completely off her rocker, right?"

"Eh, yeah, I guess she always did give off the crazy vibe," he shrugged. "But I've never seen her flip out like that before…"

"Well, you obviously weren't here when she flipped out on Sage, then," Mello observed.

"Sage? Who's that?"

Thinking back on it, I'm pretty sure he knew who Sage was. How couldn't he? Sage was always high up in the rankings, he hung out with Near, and the teachers all liked him. Of course, it's not actually important. It was just kind of weird to realize that Jake had _always _been a liar, even back then, when we were just kids. There was no reason for him to be lying, but he _was_.

Of course, I didn't know that at the time, so for now, in my eyes, Jake is perfectly honest, and Mello is going to stay at the orphanage until he turns eighteen.

"Quiet kid, sits with Near?" Mello described. "Anyways, one time— maybe three-ish years ago? He accidently spilled juice on Linda's sketch book."

"Oh gosh, I can already tell this is going to end badly," Jake sighed.

"You're right, it doesn't end well," Mello smirked. "They were on the other end of the building, and we were outside, but we could hear her yelling plain as day, right Matt?"

I nodded.

"So what happened after that?" Jake questioned.

"No one is really sure, but rumor has it that he ran to the infirmary because his ears were bleeding, and that's why he doesn't talk much— because he's part deaf."

"You actually believe that? There's no way Linda would still be here if she made a kid deaf." Jake countered.

Mello and I stared at him for a moment before bursting into laughter.

"You- you actually believe that?" Mello wheezed.

"Well yeah…"

"Oh man, you're lucky we found you. You have so much to learn! There ain't any reason Roger would kick someone out short of murder. As long as you stay intelligent, that is. If your IQ drops below 140, it's probably time to pack your bags."

"Uh, that's kind of a really shitty way to run an orphanage…"

"Yeah probably," I commented, "But it's good for us."

"How so?"

"Well, no one in the real world is going to be nice to us, so this way we have experience with how to deal with the shitty people in the world who want us dead."

"And we deal with them by fighting back and outsmarting them at every turn," Mello concluded.


	12. In Cigarettes and in Estimates

**2247/6161/421**

I wasn't exactly sure how it happened, but somehow Jake ended up back in my room playing Tony Hawk Three with us. Oh wait, just kidding, I knew how it happened. I was completely sure that Mello shoved a boney elbow into my side with a very pointed look towards Jake, thus leading me to invite him back to our room. Well, it was technically my room, but Mello spent enough nights there for it to warrant an "our".

It's not that I didn't like the kid, because I did (he was interesting; sort of like a shitty puzzle that you lost most of the pieces to, but you keep finding them in odd places, like the bathroom sink), it was just that I couldn't drag both of them with me to the shed to smoke, because Jake wasn't a part of 'the boys' yet. They'd throw a huge fit over it, saying that Jake was likely to rat them out or something.

I highly doubted that, because while Linda might've _seemed_ like she was chiller than a naked polar bear, Jake actually _was_ chiller than a naked polar bear. He was fine with whatever you threw at him. Like when Mello was attempting to break down his door, he quoted a kids book, instead of flipping out like a normal person would. He didn't tell Roger, and he'd never ratted on anyone before, even when he was given the chance. He could've easily told Roger that he was late for dinner on Friday because he was hiding from Mello, but he didn't. He also could've told Roger that there were at least ten boxes of cigarettes and a ton of matches in the shed out back, but he didn't, so why would he bother telling Roger now?

But it really wasn't worth the fight, so I'd probably just have him initiated tomorrow or something.

So for now, I took a really stupid risk and just paused the game to smoke out the window. Other than a raised eyebrow from Mello, no one said anything. I was lucky that Roger didn't take that moment to barge into my room unannounced (which he surely would've if I was alone, since I literally had the worst luck), instead, it was Rena who pushed open the door.

"Oh…" she stared at the lit cigarette in my hand, and I stared at her.

"Yo. Did you need something?"

"Matt, what _are_ you doing?"

"Having a smoke?"

"Well, yes, I was aware, but how did you even get that? And would you put it out please? You're gonna give yourself lung cancer!" she chastised.

I took one last drag before putting it out. "I'm aware. Got them from the same place I get my games, but it doesn't matter."

Namely, the older kids who could leave whenever they wanted.

She sighed and shook her head, "I suppose you're right, but please be careful. I really don't want you to die before you're even twenty," she implored, "And don't let Roger find out either! He'd throw a fit and God knows I'd be able to hear him from my office."

That was what I liked a bout Rena. She might've been motherly and easily worried, but she usually let you deal with things on your own. Of course, that didn't mean she would drop it, and I could expect her to drop by every once and a while to tell me that I should really quit.

Mello snorted, "Oh please, Roger's more likely to find a snake in his toilet."

"But still," Rena chuckled, "Anyways, I've been looking for you, Jake!"

"Oh, um, really, ma'am?" he mumbled. "What for?"

Another thing about the spineless boy wonder you should probably note: he calls every woman in an authority position "ma'am", every man in authority "sir", and every girl his age "miss". I hadn't observed him call any of the guys anything, but it would probably be correct to assume he'd call them "mister". This implied a tendency to stay distant from people, and I really _should've_ noticed, but at the time, I didn't. If only I had, I probably wouldn't regret everything so much.

"I just thought I'd let you know that I'm going to be driving you and Nadine around tomorrow! It'll be fun, I promise!"

"Wait, what? You're taking Jake out, and not us?" Mello exclaimed.

"Yeah, that's totally not cool!" I declared.

"Hey, hey, hey, don't get mad at me! I'm only taking him out because he needs a dentist appointment. The next time one of you needs a tooth replaced, I'll take you," she laughed. "Anyways, that was all. Continue- skating?"

"Yeah, it's Tony Hawk," I explained.

She rolled her eyes, "Boys and their video games. Just don't stay up too late, okay?"

"Sure," Mello and I replied simultaneously, resulting in another eye roll from Rena. As soon as I heard her footsteps retreating, I re-lit my cigarette.

"So how old were you when you started smoking?" Jake suddenly inquired.

I turned my gaze, which had been focused on the sky (It looked like it would snow soon. Not surprising, since it was long overdue), to Jake. He was lazily sprawled out on my floor, having given up on playing with us a long time earlier. He was staring up at the ceiling, and looked overall like he didn't care. "What's it to you?"

He shrugged, an impressive feat, since he was still lying on the floor. "Just want to know when I can expect you to start coughing between every word."

"I'll save you the trouble: Never. I'll die before then."

"A man with outward courage dares to die; a man with inner courage dares to live," Jake replied.

"Tch, yeah, yeah, kid, I don't need a lesson in philosophy," I stated, rolling my eyes, despite the fact that he couldn't possibly see me.

"Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!" he chirped.

"Good lord, one Dr. Suess quote is enough for a night," Mello groaned. "At least choose something that isn't poetry."

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, then are dreamt of in your philosophy."

"Okay, now you're just trying to piss me off," he grumbled.

"The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off."

"Fuck you."

Jake laughed. "That's not polite."

"I don't care," Mello again pulled out a chocolate bar from out of nowhere and snapped a piece off loudly. I almost wanted to say that he pulled it from in between the cushions of my couch, because he was prone to putting his chocolate in weird places like that.

"But seriously, though, when did you start smoking?"

Well, geez, I really didn't even remember. It was before I was put into this orphanage, meaning I was younger than nine, but I wouldn't be able to recall specifics, though, because for a long time when I was young, I lived on the streets. I had no way of telling the date, and I didn't quite care, either. All I cared about was whether or not I'd be eating that night.

But, I could still estimate.

"Maybe I was like, seven?"

"Seven?" he replied, turning his incredulous gaze towards me.

"Seven," I confirmed.

"That's a little young to be playing with matches," he replied, going back to staring at the ceiling without a care in the world.

"That's before you even entered Wammy's," Mello pointed out.

"It doesn't really matter; even if I didn't smoke, I'd still be destined to die before I reach twenty."

"How do you know?" asked Jake, almost in a distracted manner. Perhaps he had found something interesting on the ceiling.

There was a moment of silence wherein I put my cigarette out, just as I noticed the first snowflakes falling. "Life is too boring for a guy like me."

Even when you think it's changing, it's not. You live your whole life thinking "Yep, tomorrow will be different," but it's the same thing everyday. You wake up in the morning, attend school, go home, entertain yourself with the same hobbies you had yesterday, and then you fall asleep. When you get older, it's the same thing, except instead of school, you have work, and instead of whatever mundane hobbies you had when you were young, you have sex and alcohol. That's all there is in life. A cycle, a pattern, a schedule. That's it.

I unpaused the game to continue playing.

Life _is_ too boring for a guy like me.


	13. In Rules and in Detentions

**2246/6160/420**

The next day, Jake was out with Rena and Nadine, so it was just Mello and I, like usual. We shared all of our classes up until DT, where I went to a "study block."

I usually didn't do much, because although Mello had also surpassed his teacher in his craft (something about manipulating people [I think he just ignores everything he was taught, because most of the time he just comes off as angry {or maybe that's just what he wants us to think?}]), he had decided to study other crafts in his free time. I believe this month he was working on becoming fluent in some obscure language that he'll never need.

Thus, I was free to spend my DT time however I wanted (which meant that I had a smoke, played video games, and sometimes went for a run off of school grounds, not always in that order).

I know, I know, you're probably thinking "Matt? Run?" But it's the truth. I'm not really as lazy as people perceive me to be. After all, there is nothing that clears your mind quite like a good jog.

And so, after lunch, I put on a fuzzy sweater over my usual striped long sleeved shirt, because it was colder than Mount Gagazet on Christmas, and went for a jog. The snow that had fallen the night before was light, so it had easily been pushed off the sidewalk. There didn't seem to be much ice, but there would probably be some in the weeks to come. Therefore, this would probably be my last run before spring. I ducked under the gates of the orphanage with little problem, as I'd done it many times before.

The funny thing about Wammy's rules: there was one dictating that every kid had to know how to drive by the time they were fifteen, but there was no rule stating that you couldn't leave the grounds. Trust me, I'd checked.

It was kind of strange actually, that even though there was so much pressure put on kids here, not a whole lot of them had up and left. In fact, there were kids who were responsible enough to plausibly live on their own, but stayed at Wammy's far into their twenties. Then again, maybe it wasn't so strange. Wammy's might have been a shitty place to live, but it was still a place to live, and that was nice.

But, you know, if I could be guaranteed a place to stay, I'd probably leave.

It was funny, almost, to think that I made such a big deal about life being routine, when almost everything I did was _also_ routine. Of course, I was perfectly aware of that, which was part of the reason I hated life so much. It was boring, I was boring, we _all_ were boring.

Exhibit A: Whenever I went for a run, I followed the same path, afraid I'd get lost. And it was crazy, almost ridiculous, for me to think that, because although I was one unlucky son of a bitch, I'd never gotten lost a day in my life. My feet always knew exactly where to take me.

Exhibit B: I always followed along with what Mello did, always, no matter the circumstance. I'd probably follow him into the middle of a war-zone with no regrets.

Exhibit C: whenever I played Tekken, I played the same character.

Don't laugh, that was a serious example.

If I'd been thinking about it, I might've noted that the snow was pretty when it shone in the daylight, or that the mood was one of happiness as children went out to play in the snow. However, all I acknowledged was the passing of the pavement underneath my feet.

Another thing about being a genius: you can never turn your brain off. My skill was in observation, and as such, I noticed everything. Everything from the cracks on the pavement I walked every day, to the position of the stars every night. This was the reason I carried around orange tinted glasses. There's no way to notice everything when you're blinded by a constant blur of orange. So, although I may have noticed the snow, and the happiness, I definitely didn't acknowledge it.

I didn't return to Wammy's until late in the afternoon. It was 5:45, so I had been really cutting it close. If I had returned any later, I wouldn't have had time to throw my sweater (the only one I owned, now that I thought about it) onto the floor of my room and make it to dinner on time. As it happened, I did make it to dinner on time, and I rushed to sit with Mello.

It was an amusing sight, but not an uncommon one, to see Mello with more than one heavy tome spread out in front of him, with his hair sticking up in many places where he'd ran his hand through it He must've had a rough day of… studying. Weird, but not necessarily bad. If Mello was worn out from his day, he'd probably be easily convinced to skip detention with me.

It wasn't particularly often that me and Mello were assigned detentions (Mello was usually good at talking us out of trouble), but it was widely known that we had a habit of skipping them every once in a while. Usually, this just doomed us to more detentions, but it was worth the small rush we got from not following the rules. At least, it was in my opinion anyways.

"Bad day?" I questioned, sliding in to my seat beside him.

"Hmph," he grunted, continuing to read.

"I'll take that as a yes. What're you up to, Mells?" He didn't answer. "Mello?" Nothing. "Mello fellow? Melly? Marsh-Mello? Mellow Mello? Mellory?"

He turned from his book to glare at me, "If you must know, _Mattikins,_ I happen to be looking up good quotes—" Here, he lifted the book to show me that the spine simply read 'quotes'. "— so that I can completely out quote that bookish bastard."

I laughed. "Really, _Melanie_? That seems like it's not even worth the work."

"Don't mock me, _Mattress_," he glared, "There's nothing wrong with a man just proving his fucking worth."

"Oh no, I'd never mock you, _Mell-bell_," I teased.

"Bitch."

"Dick."

"Ass."

"What about my hot ass?"

He groaned. "Fuck you, you fucking piece of worthless shit."

"Sure sure. Anyways, I gots a preposition for you," I whispered, glancing at Linda across the table to make sure she wasn't listening. He looked at Linda, then at me before leaning in to hear what I had to say.

"What is it, dork?"

"Lets… Skip… Detention."

He snorted. "And do what?"

"Wreck shit."

"Wreck shit?"

"Yes."

"Sure—we'll go down in Wammy's history as the craziest motherfuckers that ever lived," he agreed.

"Hell yes!" I agreed. Linda gave us an odd look from across the table, but we ignored it.

Of course, we didn't actually end up wrecking shit; we never did. Instead, we dragged my game systems into Jake's room, which was unlocked, probably because Jake was too lazy to lock his door every time he left.

I know, I know, "trespassing" and all, but how else were we going to avoid Roger? Did you really expect us to just laze around in my room?

The idea had come from Megan, unsurprisingly. Her first suggestion had been to hide in Near's room, but Mello vehemently protested it, so then she suggested we hide out in Jake's room. Because he wasn't home, Roger probably wouldn't bother checking there, even if he was ninety-nine levels of pissed the fuck off.

Something you should note about Megan: she was a master planner. While everyone else _could_ put together a plan for any situation without problem, Megan could do it _faster_, _easier_, and with _less error_ than any of the Wammy's kids. She was especially good at making plans to avoid certain people.

It was a talent of hers that was mostly overlooked, due to her unprecedented skills at mathematics. People only ever saw that talent, and it obviously frustrated her. That's why, when Mello started asking her for plans, she was more than glad to help him, despite the fact that more often then not, Mello and her were arguing.

It should be noted that both of them had a grudging respect for each other.

It was a great plan, too. I probably would've suggested hiding out in the shed, but, as Megan casually pointed out while explaining her thought process, there was snow on the ground, which meant there would be foot prints. I probably would've figured that out eventually, but it didn't matter.

What _did_ matter was that Mello's points had just surpassed mine, that son of a bitch!

We had just finished a round of Tekken (which I won, unsurprisingly), when Jake walked into the room, spotted us, opened his mouth to say something, decided not to, and flopped down onto his bed. Chiller than a naked polar bear.

"Yo," I greeted, setting up another round without looking. "How was the dentist?"

"Erm, give me a second," he grumbled into his pillow, "Blessed are they who hold lively conversations with the helplessly mute, for they shall be called dentists."

"That was weak, man," I commented.

"Yeah, yeah. You try finding a good quote about dentistry."

"God DAMN it!" Mello swore. "Matt, I didn't read any quotes about the dentist. Why didn't I fucking do that? I should've known it would come up!"

I couldn't help but laugh. Jake seemed to find it funny too, despite having not been at dinner this evening.

"Do you mean to say," he laughed, "that you looked up quotes specifically so you could bother me?"

"Shut the hell up, cake boy."

He continued to laugh. I continued to beat Mello. Mello continued to grumble.

"So, do I even want to know why you're in my bedroom?" Jake asked.

"Skipping detention," Mello grumbled.

"O-kayy," Jake replied, "But why in my room?"

"Where else were we going to go?" I questioned.

He took a moment to think, "Near's bedroom."

Mello swore. I laughed. I could almost hear Megan saying "I told you so, idiot." There was an ice-type's chance in Hell that I wasn't going to tell her about this.

Jake simply shrugged before turning his back to us, presumably to take a nap. Mello stretched, unplugged his controller, and grabbed a random book from the shelf in the corner, as a silent symbol that he was giving up trying to beat me (Hah, joking, Mello never gave up. He just got bored of losing). I proceeded to switch the game to Kingdom Hearts. Of course, I'd already beat the game, but whatever.

In the up and coming months, this would be a common sight: me playing video games, Mello reading, and Jake sleeping. In fact, that cycle doesn't ever really stop. Even today, writing this to you, I can tell you that the cycle never truly stopped. We've just taken brief pauses, in between long bouts of companionable silence.

Even though, today, we don't share the same air.

But, to quote the spineless bastard quoting someone else, "Growing apart doesn't change the fact that for a long time we grew side by side; our roots will always be tangled. I'm glad for that."


	14. In Mornings and in Angst

**2245/6159/419**

The next morning, the first thing I noticed was that I wasn't in my own room. The next thing I noticed was that Mello's foot was in my face. I made a face, and looked around a bit more. I was in Jake's room, on his bed, and it was four in the morning.

Ah, I guess we'd crashed in Jake's room. It was strange though, I could have sworn we'd fallen asleep on the couch. Whatever, not that big of a deal. I re-adjusted myself on the bed so that Mello's feet were _not _in my face, and proceeded to go back to sleep.

When I woke up next, it was due to the uncomfortable feeling of being kicked.

"Get up fucktard, we have to get ready for class," Mello yawned. It was six, and he didn't really look all that awake either. It was actually kind of amusing, I thought, because he obviously hadn't brushed his hair yet, and it was ten levels of "all over the place."

"Are you insane?" Jake mumbled from across the room on his couch. "It's only six, go back to sleep."

"_Only_ six?" Mello stated, as if in disbelief.

"Most normal people don't get up at the dawn of Satan's ass crack, Mells," I mumbled.

He made a sound that sort of sounded like "whatever" and got up out of the bed. I heard his feet pounding across the floor and inwardly winced, but he was only going to the door. I breathed a sigh of relief as the door clicked shut and closed my eyes.

Of course, I probably should've known what would happen next, but cut me a break! It was six in the morning, and I hadn't gone to sleep until at least two AM the night before.

Mello came stomping back into the room after what felt like only seconds, except this time, he was armed with two pots. Of course, I didn't know that at first, because he waited three seconds before banging them together and screeching "Wakey wakey motherfuckers!"

There was a bang as both Jake and I fell out of our respective resting places at the same time.

"Aw man, what the hell, Mello? Rude," I groaned.

"Seconded," Jake called.

"You should've just gotten up when I told you to then," Mello cackled

"Erg, whatever," I replied, rubbing my head.

"Why would you even _need _to wake up at six?" Jake complained.

"Tch, go take a shower. Just because we're boys, doesn't mean we have to be pigs," Mello said, by way of an answer.

"Fine," Jake grumbled, dragging himself to his wardrobe. He glanced out the window, before grabbing a blue shirt, a pair of baggy jeans— an exact copy of the ones he was currently wearing, I noted—and a blue sweater. He periodically switched between a blue sweater and a black one, but I didn't think it was important enough to look in to. Then, he slouched off in to his bathroom without so much of a "later."

A few seconds after the door shut, Mello opened his mouth again. "That means you too, Matt."

I groaned. "Fine."

Mello followed me down the hallway to my room, most likely because a majority of his clothes were stored in there anyways.

I really doubt you want to read about me showering, so I'm just going to skip to breakfast.

Not surprisingly, Mello had gotten there before me. I slid into my seat just as Roger walked into the room. His gaze caught ours, and he immediately made his way towards us.

"And _just where_ were you two last night?" he inquired, far too angrily for seven in the morning.

"Uhhh," I mumbled. Let's see, to admit, or not to admit, that is the question. Fortunately, I didn't have to choose, because that was the moment that Jake walked up to us. He casually slid into the seat across from me, ran his hand through his wet hair, and opened his mouth to speak.

"Eh, guess they _did_ have somewhere to be, then," he commented. "Sorry about that, sir, it was totally my fault. I stayed up later than I should've Monday night, and ended up passing out in the hallway after I got home from the dentist. Matt and Mello found me and brought me back to my room— on the other side of the orphanage and up a flight of stairs. That's why they didn't show up."

Roger looked suspicious for a moment, but seemed to change his mind at the expression on Jake's face. It was a perfect cross between guilt, regret, and anger. Yeah, Jake was definitely con man material.

"Ah, alright, just remember that your health is very important, Mister Jake. As for you, Mello, Matt, I know you boys like to do things on your own, but next time, I insist that you get an adult," he stared at both of us in turn, "I'll let you off the hook for that detention just this once, just don't let it happen again."

All three of us watched as he retreated, then, after he was a fair distance away, Mello practically yelled "Where did you even learn to do that?"

"Family secret," Jake chuckled.

"Seriously dude, that was great; I probably could've done it myself, except Roger _expects_ me to do shit like that now," Mello commented, sounding mildly impressed.

If you didn't catch that, Mello was the kind of guy who didn't outwardly admit someone else could do something better than he could. Instead, he'd say something along the lines of "Hey, I can do that too! But better!" You all probably know someone like that. You know, _that guy_, the one who always has to out-due you? Yeah, that was Mello. Except, Mello didn't actually mean that. Usually, he was convinced that he was the worst at whatever he was doing.

"Hah, yeah, of course Mello. You're welcome," Jake smiled (although it looked like it was causing him pain).

"You ever think of becoming a con-man?" I questioned, half because I wanted to know the answer, and half because I wanted to convince him not to.

He seemed to consider it for a moment, "Huh, not before now, but—"

"— don't," I interrupted.

"Eh? Why not?"

I visibly shivered. Mello took one look at me and laughed.

"You're not still caught up on that Aiber thing, are you?"

"Wah, no, of course not!" I lied.

"What Aiber thing?" Jake asked curiously.

"Nothing—!"

"—One time, there was a French teacher named Aiber who taught here—!"

"— No, God Mello, stop—!"

"— and he conned Matt so bad that he had to take lessons on how to not to be gullible—!"

"—Stoooooooooooop—!"

"—For three whole years!" Mello finished, laughing loudly.

"Oh my gosh, really?" Jake laughed.

"Maaa, stop laughing at me," I whined.

"Yeah sure," said Mello, "_After_ you stop being so easy to laugh at."

"Rude!" I drawled, "First, you wake me up at _six o'clock in the morning_, then, you practically shove me into the shower, and now you're making fun of me!"

"Relax, dude, it's all in good fun," Jake joked.

"But Jakey-wakey!" I cried.

Jakes immediate response to this was to bury his face into his arms and cry out "Don't _call_ me that!"

"Dumb move," Megan advised, appearing suddenly beside Jake, "Now he'll probably make sure to call you that as frequently as possible."

I smirked, "Ah, Meggy, you know me too well."

"Yeah yeah, just eat your pancakes."

Linda had shown up too. "Oh, Jake! You're here! I came to wake you up this morning, but you weren't there! I was worried you were angry with me!" she gushed.

"Nah," Jake mumbled, sitting up straight. "Too lazy to get angry, remember?"

I highly doubted that, but I didn't say anything.

"Oh Jake, you're so strange," Linda giggled. She took a seat next to Megan, two seats down from where she usually sat. "You don't usually show up for breakfast though, what's up?"

"Mello broke into my room in the middle of the night dressed as Angelina Ballerina. I was rightfully scared for my life."

His tone was perfectly serious, and I took a moment to wonder how he pulled that off with a straight face. I didn't come up with an answer right away, though, so I gave up on it.

"Hey, don't use me in your bullshit lies!" Mello complained.

"I don't know, Mello, that seems like a pretty accurate description of your behavior," Megan joked.

"Oh fuck you," Mello grumbled.

Classes went normally that day. We got a few tests back in English class, where Mello had the second-highest score next to Near's by a decimal point. The only difference that was really notable was that Mello checked Jake's score too. He gave Jake an odd look, so I'm guessing that his score was lower than Mello had expected it to be.

Whatever, English must not be Jake's strong point, then. Perhaps he was good at science, or math, or both.

Up until DT classes, I would say that the day was kind of dull. Of course_, during_ DT classes, my feet happened to lead me to the library, where I saw an odd sight. Jake was, dare I say it, _angsting_ in the corner.

"Uh, Jake?"

He looked up at me, "Yes?"

"What're you doing?"

"They got rid of my gymnastics class," he frowned, "so I'm just going to chill out here."

"Gymnastics?" I questioned.

I was aware that most kids were required to take up a sport of some kind, but _gymnastics_? Was he being serious? This was one of those moments when I truly couldn't tell.

"Yes. Cute girls wearing pretty much nothing," he clarified.

Oh, I guess that sort of made sense.

"Isn't that violating their trust?"

"What? It's not like stare at them or anything," he paused, looking thoughtful, "If I just so happen to notice that Claire has a nice butt, then that's a different story."

"Claire? From the third generation? Isn't she a bit old for you?" I slid into the seat across from him.

He laughed quietly, "I'm fifteen, almost sixteen, and she's hardly too old."

"Woah, shit, man, really? You're so old; you're going to start graying soon!" I joked.

"Yep, I can already feel my back going out!" he said, making some sort of dramatic motion with his hand.

"Like seriously, though, you're old enough to have sex without being scarred for life!"

Immediately, his entire face turned bright red all the way down his neck.

"Oh my god, a world of connections to make, and you go with 'sex'!"

I laughed, "Dude, your _entire _face is red."

"Oh my god, is it? I need to find a mirror or some shit; you have to be exaggerating!"

"Oh but I'm not," I laughed. I really wasn't, his entire face was red.

"Well shit, this is embarrassing. I'm setting a grand example for the younger generation, aren't I?" he laughed.

"Nope, I'm going to remember this forever as an example of how not cool you are."

"Great—I can just see it now, in my obituary, it'll say 'Yo, dude, this guy was so uncool, he blushed at even the mention of sex. R.I.P? More like L.O.L."

"Well, now I have to, since you suggested it."

"I guess it just depends on which of us does something stupid enough to get us killed first," he laughed.

"Well then, it's a deal," I nodded, shaking his hand.

A deal.

Hmm.


	15. In Fights and in Mankind

**2244/6158/418**

It was another day before anything of notable importance happened. It was the fifth of December, and it was the day that permanently sealed us together forever. However, I won't be getting to that part until later.

It was a Friday, which meant that we only had DT classes. Roger hadn't gotten to assigning Jake individualized lessons yet, so we essentially had the day off. Mello even agreed to chill with us, despite not being finished with his monthly goal.

So I decided that it was an opportune moment to have Jake initiated into 'the boys' purely for the sake of my smoking habit. At this time of day on a Friday, everyone would be there.

When I showed up in the shed dragging a protesting Jake along, everyone stopped what they were doing to stare at him. It was almost comical, seeing as two boys, Rat and Phil, were in the middle of 'play fighting' when we walked in. Thus, they froze with their fists in the air, and their other hand holding the other's shirt.

Mello dragged Jake from behind me. The look on his face was a strange cross of horror and amusement. He lifted one of his hands in a lazy wave.

"This is Jake, he likes quoting shit, and he's a secret badass. No ones allowed to hit him or you'll have to answer to my fist.

"Uh, hi?"

"That's all, go back to what you were doing, dumbfucks."

"But…" Phil spoke up. "No offence, but wasn't that the guy you wanted to beat the shit out of?"

Mello snorted, "Yeah, and I fucking did, didn't I?" he gestured to the large bruise on Jake's face.

"Woah really?" commented Jack. "I thought Cory and Greg did that?"

"Those idiots? Fuck no," Mello lied. "Aint that right, Jake?

"Yeah," he agreed, "Nothing makes better friends than a fist to the face, right?"

Another thing you should probably remember: Jake was a _damn_ good liar. I've mentioned that before, but in case you've forgotten, I've decided to remind you. It's prudent that you remember that. If you forget all of his other traits, just remember that he lies well, and you'll be fine.

"Wait…" said one of the boys from farther in the shed. "Does that mean that Jake is the one who gave _you _that bruise?"

"Of course, why the hell else would I decide to befriend him? He sure aint as smart as you would think."

Ah, that was interesting. It was strange for Mello to ever admit that someone one upped him. Of course, he was probably thinking "Better Jake than Greg or Cory," but I'd never know. Maybe there was actually something he really liked about Jake?

"Isn't he second in the rankings?" Rat asked.

"Someone was probably playing a prank on us; the kid got a fifty on his English test," Mello snorted. "But he's a cool guy anyway."

"So chill," I commented, not looking up from my Game Boy.

"Hey wait," Phil said, narrowing his eyes, "You're not gonna make him do the initiation fight?"

Jake looked back and forth between Phil and Mello with widened eyes. He seemed to be pleading to whatever God he might worship for Mello to let him off the hook.

"You kidding? Of course I am."

"Ah, shit," Jake swore, "This can only end badly."

The second piece of his sentence was muttered quietly, so I don't think he meant for anyone to hear him.

"Isn't this like," he paused for a moment to think, "Hazing?"

"Yeah, what of it?" Mello said, smirking. The boys laughed.

"Alright," Jake sighed, reluctant. "What's the rules?"

"There are none, other than 'don't kill, or otherwise permanently maim.'" One of the boys supplied.

"Man, this feels like I'm joining the mafia or something," he complained.

"Yeah yeah," Mello sighed, slipping into his fighting stance.

"Bring it on," Jake taunted.

Remember when I said he had a habit of provoking people known to be incredibly violent? This was one of those times where it was really obvious. It probably could've been an interesting fight, except it became apparent from the beginning that Jake wasn't actually going to try. He made halfhearted attempts to block Mello's hits, and lazily fought back—only hitting with the force a two year old might muster up.

For what it was worth, to the untrained eye, he did _look_ like he was trying. He mirrored Mello's stance almost perfectly, despite obviously not having any training. Hell, I could only tell by the way he moved when he went to hit, but Mello had the good grace to pretend like it actually did damage. I highly doubted any of the other guys noticed though.

Inevitably, the fight ended with Jake on the ground on his stomach, and Mello standing victoriously over him with his foot on Jake's back.

"I won," he stated simply.

"Is anyone actually surprised?" Jake groaned.

"Of course not," Mello scoffed.

And that was how Jake became a member of the boys. It's not this that sealed our fate, in fact, his "initiation" had little effect on our eternal damnation. Instead, the important part happened later that very day.

We were chilling in the common room, as per request of Linda, who wanted to work on painting more than one person in a photo. What she didn't tell us, was that Near was going to be there too.

Mello of course, threw a huge fit, but settled down when Linda put him closer in the composition than Near was. Linda had directed me to be playing on my handheld on the floor, with my legs propped up on the couch, as if I'd accidently slid off and then decided I didn't care enough to get back on. Jake was in the back, playing "go fish" with Near.

I thought it was kind of funny that Linda had told them to pretend to play cards, but they decided to actually play anyways. Jake appeared to be winning, by some odd twist of fate.

The TV was on, since Mello had insisted that because he was on the couch, he should at least get to do something interesting. He was watching the news, which I thought was kind of boring, because I didn't really care what was going on elsewhere. However, around ten minutes into the show, the newscaster ran a segment on the "Kira" case. She was going to show a scene from Japan or something. Weird.

"Apologies for the interruption, we now bring you a live broadcast from the ICPO, Interpol."

"Ah, did we miss this earlier?" Mello commented.

"I am the only person who can control the world's police forces, Lind L. Tailor," the man started.

"Bullshit," Mello stated, "L's the only one who can do that."

"I go by the code name 'L.'"

"W-wah?" Mello exclaimed.

"Eh," Jake uttered from the back of the room. "I doubt that's really him."

"What makes you say that, Jake?" Linda asked.

"Two things: One, L would never show his face on national television, and two, look at his body language. It's just… off."

And his perception proved itself to be uncanny. Jake was a good liar, and thus, he could probably tell when other people were lying.

"This successive murdering of criminals is unforgivable and must not go unpunished. I guarantee I will find the ring leader or 'Kira'. Kira, I can guess what your motivation might be, but, what you're doing is evil!"

And then, quite suddenly, the man dropped dead. There were noises of surprise from all across the room.

"W-what the hell?" Mello questioned.

And that was when the letter "L" took over the screen.

"I-I had to test this just in case, but I never thought this would actually happen," L's familiar scrambled voice rattled through the speakers. "Kira, it seems you can kill people without having to be there in person. I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't just witnessed it. Listen to me, Kira, if you did indeed kill Lind L. Tailor, the man I just saw die on television, I should tell you that he was an inmate, whose execution was scheduled for today. That was not me."

"Told you."

"The police arrested him in absolute secrecy, so you wouldn't have heard about him on TV or through the internet. It appears that even _you_ don't have access to information about these types of criminals. But, L is real,_ I_ do exist. Now, try to kill me!"

"Uwaa," Linda gasped, "why would he do that!"

"What's wrong? Right now, kill me! It's a live broadcast, come on!"

"Eeeee!"

There was a moment of silence where you could've heard a pin drop.

"Well, Kira, it appears that you can't kill me after all. So, there are some people you can't kill; you've given me a useful hint. Let me return the favor. I'll let you know something you might find interesting: although this was announced as a worldwide broadcast, the truth is, we are only broadcasting in the Kanto region of Japan. I had planned to broadcast this around the world until we found you, but it looks like that won't be necessary; I now know where you are. The policed treated your first killing as an unrelated incident, but in reality the first of your victims was a suspect in Shinjuku. Of all the criminals that have recently died of heart attacks, this one was by far the one with the least serious offence; furthermore, his crime was only reported in Japan. I used that information to deduce this much: you are in Japan, and your first victim was little more than a test, which means that you haven't been killing for very long."

Mello laughed, "Well, shit, that's L for you."

"We decided to broadcast in Kanto first because of its lower population, and luckily, we found you. To be completely honest with you, I never expected that things would go this well, but it wont be too long now before I am able to sentence you—to death. Naturally, I'm very curious as to how you are able to commit these murders without being present, but I don't mind waiting a little bit longer; you can answer all my questions when I catch you. Let's meet again soon, Kira."

"But," Linda started, "Why would L even want to catch Kira? He's only killing off criminals, right?"

"So? Who comes next, Linda, when all the terrible ones are killed?" Mello questioned, "I'll tell you who; the petty criminals, the drug addicts, the ones who have every opportunity to turn their life around."

"A criminal is a criminal," Near commented, "And if you get killed, than you're just a loser."

Jake made a sound like a dying cat, and Mello looked just about ready to walk over to Near and smack him.

"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws." Jake quoted. "And the world is nothing without its people."

"If the human race went extinct, the world would still keep turning," Near stated.

"If the human race went extinct, you'd be dead, so maybe it should!" Mello argued.

"And if you were dead, you'd be a loser," Jake pointed out.

"Ah, I would," he confirmed. "Do you have any fours in your deck?"

"Go fish."

Luckily for all parties involved, Mello didn't take the chance to keep arguing with Near, seeing as Mello had "won." Instead, he went back to silently fuming, and Near went back to playing cards.

This was the incident that sealed our fate. Not the argument, but L's speech, because later that night, when Mello, Jake, and I had all gone back to my room, Mello gave us an order.


	16. In Scripture and in Music

**2244/6158/418**

"We're going to work on the Kira case, and we're going to figure it out before L."

"Okay," I agreed instantly, used to following Mello's whims. Jake however, was not used to Mello's demands yet.

"What?" Jake asked, giving Mello a strange look. "How do you plan on doing that?"

Mello made a sound of annoyance. "Well, Matt can hack, I can put evidence together, and you have to be good at _something _if you live here."

He continued to stare at Mello with that odd look.

"Well, what is it then? What's your talent, quote boy?"

Jake raised a delicate eyebrow. Briefly, I wondered if he plucked them, or if they grew naturally like that. He _was_ a blond though, so it was probably natural.

"I'm a musician."

"No you're fucking not. Seriously, what are you good at?"

He sighed. "Guess there's no way I'm getting out of it then—I'm good at graphing."

"Good. Okay, you start graphing the time of death for the criminals, Jake, and Matt, see if you can't find something in Roger's emails from L."

"That's a bit of a long shot, Mells."

"Whatever, just fucking do it. I'm gonna look up weapons that would let you kill someone without being present."

"Good luck with that," Jake snorted.

"Get to work, Jakey-wakey," Mello glared.

"Fuck you."

The next few weeks were filled with more video games, research, and Jake than ever before. He'd shown an interest in playing Kingdom Hearts, for whatever reason, so he played that with a determination like nothing I'd ever seen before. Oh, he was definitely still shit at games, but with me giving him pointers, he'd managed to get mostly through the game within the first week, and the only time he'd let me have the controller was when he wanted to beat Riku in the race, so he could name the ship "SinkAndDie."

When he wasn't playing Kingdom Hearts, he was reading. It was a habit of his that I hadn't picked up on before, although I probably should have, because of his extensive knowledge of quotes. And when he wasn't reading, or playing, he was graphing. Ever since he'd pointed out that the times of death corresponded with a normal Japanese student schedule, Mello had been on him about finding out more.

Jake, of course, found the entire thing to be ridiculous.

It was weird though, Jake had been even more irritable as of late then he had ever been. Occasionally, I'd catch him rubbing his eyes as if he was tired. Perhaps we WERE tiring him out.

Or maybe he just hadn't seen enough cute butts that month.

Nevertheless, he worked on the case, occasionally demanding a break so he could nap.

Something about Jake you should probably note: he slept a whole awful lot. Although he had started showing up to breakfast, he went to sleep earlier. If you weren't keeping him up by telling him to do things, he'd generally go right to sleep. Perhaps he had some sort of an illness, or perhaps his brain just worked harder than everyone else's. Either way, fifty percent of the time, he was sleeping.

**2238/6152/412**

On the eleventh of December, Jake made a discontented noise from the other side of the room. He was working on his Wammy's house issued laptop, gathering more information to graph for Mello.

"You find something?" Mello asked, looking up from a particularly large book, his hair pulled into a messy ponytail.

"Yeah, I guess."

Mello was looking over Jake's shoulder before he'd even finished his statement.

"What does that mean?" he was pointing to something on Jake's graph, but I didn't bother going over to look at what it was. I didn't really care about this "Kira" business.

"'Means Kira's either not a student, or he's figured out how to arrange times of death."

"You think he can do that?" Mello asked.

"Well, I dun know; he can kill people without being there, who's to say he can't control times?"

Mello flopped onto his back, "Huh. This is some weird ass shit."

Jake scoffed, "An act of God."

"Ah, shit, man, don't joke like that; God will strike you down faster than you can quote the Ten Commandments," I stated.

"Don't tempt me."

Mello snorted, "I bet you don't even know the Ten Commandments."

"Oh please, bitch, I went to Sunday school."

"So?"

Jake cleared his throat, "And God spoke all these words, saying, 'I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not take the name of the Lord, your God, in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord, your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord, your God is giving you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's.'"

Mello stared at him with his mouth wide open. I supposed he didn't actually expect Jake to know them. I, however, wasn't surprised. The kid could quote obscure authors from two hundred years ago, why wouldn't he be able to quote the Bible?

"You must've been fun in school," I commented.

"My friends thought so."

"What friends?" I joked.

"Ha hah, so funny; I'm going to laugh myself into a coma."

I laughed, "Just face it; you wouldn't be anything without Mells and I."

"True facts."

He than shoved his laptop into Mello's hands and proceeded to pass out.

"Fucking weirdo," Mello shook his head. Suddenly, an evil look crossed his face. "Yo, Matt, whatdya say we snoop through his files?" he whispered.

I shrugged my shoulders, "sure, why not."

I almost choked when I saw Jake's desktop background.

"How did he even get a picture of Roger?" I gasped, out of breath from laughing so hard.

"I don't know, but holy fuck. We should print this and put it in his office!"

"Fuck yeah! Ugh, oh my god, I'm dying," I laughed.

"Die quieter then, I'm trying to sleep," Jake groaned. He raised an eyebrow when he saw what we were doing, but shook his head and turned around, presumably to sleep again.

I was pretty sure we wouldn't find anything really interesting, but Mello insisted anyway (after he printed out the desktop photo, of course).

The only icons on the desktop were Windows Media Player and the Internet, so I opted for the former.

Ah, most of his music was the kind of shit Mello liked. Not too surprising. Most of them were labeled except—ooh, what's this folder? It was titled "my shit" and it hadn't been opened for around two years. Suspicious. And it contained—an equal amount of text documents and video files?

Jackpot. Or should I say, Jakepot?

Oh God, forget I ever said that.

"You got headphones?"

"Yeah."

I contemplated which file to click first, and settled on the oldest one, dated three years ago.

The camera faded from black, to white, to normal, so you cold see a bedroom I didn't recognize as being part of Wammy's house. From what I could tell, the walls were a mix of lime green and forest green, and they were covered with various band posters. There was a plush chair in the focus of the camera, along with a professional-looking microphone. The only noise was the whir of a fan from somewhere off screen.

Suddenly, a much younger, happier, but still recognizable Jake slid into the frame. He appeared to be around ten, but I knew from our previous conversation in the library that three years ago he would've been twelve. He was holding a violin and laughing.

Younger Jake had hair that was redder than it was today, so perhaps it had lightened with age. It looked completely natural, so I doubted it was dyed. He had a pair of wire framed glasses on, which was odd, because I didn't recall Jake ever wearing glasses. His sea green eyes appeared lighter on past Jake, and it gave him an appearance of innocence and maybe a little bit of hope. Past Jake's face read like an open book: this was odd, because it'd be quite the challenge to tell what present Jake was feeling. Perhaps the most striking difference, however, was the chubbiness of his cheeks in comparison to present Jake. Past Jake definitely wasn't fat, no, past Jake was… Healthy?

"Uh, hey!" past Jake greeted enthusiastically. "This is called 'Pouring Rain!' This is going to be really bad, but it'll be great, promise! Here goes nothing!"

Younger Jake was a talented musician. I was reminded of Quinn, the orphanage's most skilled musician. Considering that Quinn was supposed to be the best in the country, I had to wonder. If Jake could play like that three years ago, perhaps he had surpassed Quinn already?

Either way, I was impressed. Not to mention that he had supposedly composed the piece himself. Perhaps he wasn't lying about his skill being music? Hmm.

I could tell Mello thought so too, just by the way he glanced back and forth from the Jake on screen, to the Jake on the bed, as if wondering whether or not Jake could still create music like that. He probably couldn't; after all, that's what time without practice does to people.

"Hum, maybe he was serious about being a musician," Mello commented.

"Maybe," I agreed.

I didn't think the music was the most important part, though. Younger Jake, while obviously much shorter, was also healthier. I wasn't one to talk about being healthy, but then again, I was never really healthy in the first place. Man, what a waste.

Perhaps I could make up for my horrid, lazy, ass-holeish personality if I decided to help him out. It would probably get Rena off my case if I could make it seem like I gave a damn what Jake did.

But I would still cheat.

Oh, something that I can't believe I forgot to mention: I'm an accomplished cheater. There's no way I'd ever have the patience to get to and maintain a third place spot in the rankings; that shit just wasn't going to fly. Instead, I did an average job in all of my classes, and then hacked into the computer to change my grades. Simple as that, no studying involved.

After all, if hacking into the system was easy enough for a nine-year-old who'd never touched a computer before in his life to do, than I think I probably deserved the spot.

Of course, I probably _could_ make it to third if I really cared, but I didn't. It seemed like L knew I cheated though, which is why I wasn't being considered as his successor.

What's that? You thought the top three was synonymous with the successors of L? Well, you were wrong.

It used to be just the top orphan who was called "successor," but, after he killed himself from the pressure, they switched it to the top three. Then, when Mello and Near started competing, since they came to the orphanage at roughly the same time, it was changed again. See, L had reportedly watched videos of them verbally answering questions, and read their files, and then couldn't decide if he liked Near's "I-Feel-No-Emotion" method, or Mello's "I'm-Really-Emotional-So-I-Have-A-Ton-Of-Motivatio n" method. So, the "successors" were changed to the top two orphans.

I'd assume he looked at my files and records and things too, and then figured out that I cheated at everything. However, he didn't say anything about it, so it didn't matter much.

I wondered if Jake was now considered a successor? I mean, if he was in the top three now, it would only make sense for L to have looked at his files too.

Come to think of it, what were the odds of Jake and Mello having the _exact._ _same. score_? Especially if Jake did as poorly on tests as Mello was implying? It was unlikely… Were the odds higher that L had chosen Jake in particular?

But for what?

So, as soon as Jake woke up (5:30, just in time to walk his slow ass to dinner), I decided to see if he knew anything.

"So… Have you taken any weird tests lately?" I asked.

Both Mello and Jake gave me an odd look.

"No, have you?" Mello asked.

"Maybe. Have you, Jake?"

He looked thoughtful for a moment. "Nope."

Of course, he was lying. I didn't know that, though, at least not at the time. In fact, you can be sure that 90% percent of the things he said that weren't quotes, were lies.

"Ah, okay."

"Why are you asking?" Mello inquired.

Let's see, do I tell him what I'm actually thinking or not?

"Eh, just curious."

Mello gave me a weird look, but dropped it when I didn't clarify.

After Roger took attendance and Jake had joined us at our end of the table, I started piling vegetables and fatty foods on the plate in front of me. I then proceeded to switch plates with Jake while he was busy greeting Megan and Linda, as if he hadn't seen them when he walked over to us. Maybe he hadn't. I mean, now that I thought of it, Jake seemed to not be seeing a lot of things he should have lately.

When he went to go put food on his plate, and noticed it was already full, he raised a delicate eyebrow. "Uh, what?"

Megan laughed, "I think he's saying you're too thin, bean-pole boy."

"Well, fuck, that's kind of rude."

"Well, it's true," Mello shrugged.

"I'm not going to eat all this," he stated.

"Yes, you are," I replied.

"No, I'm not," he countered.

"Yes, you are," I emphasized.

He took a deep breath, as if to keep himself from getting mad. "Why the sudden interest in my eating habits?"

"You're too thin."

"Says society. I'm fine with the way I am."

Ah, the body image debate. Yes, it would be fine if he was thin,_ if _he was getting the proper nutrients, which he _wasn't_. He didn't eat anything at breakfast, or at lunch, and at dinner he didn't even eat a whole awful lot. It would be _fine _if he was healthy, but he _wasn't_. And I wanted to see him healthy, just like I wanted Mello to be healthy, and I wanted myself to be healthy. Simple as that.

"You're not healthy."

"Neither are half the kids here."

"Half the kids here aren't my friends."

This seemed to throw him for a loop. He stared blankly at me for a few moments before looking down at his food and starting to eat.

Don't get me wrong: he still complained every time I set food in front of him, but he ate it, and even in just a week, you could really tell the difference. His muscles from gymnastics were more defined, and his cheekbones were far less prominent.


	17. In Electricity and in Shoes

**2234/6148/408**

On the fifteenth of December, there was a huge snow storm. It was cold, and the power had gone out.

I'm sure Wammy's had a generator, but for whatever reason, they'd decided to not turn it on. It was fine for a little while, but then my GameBoy died. Not cool.

"GaaAaaaaaaaaAaAAaaaaah," I cried. Jake jumped like twenty feet in the air, illuminated by the afternoon sunlight peeking through the curtains. There was a bang as he fell off the couch where he'd been sleeping and hit the floor.

"Holy fucking shit! Don't do that!"

I can't remember if I've mentioned this or not, but Jake is actually really easily scared.

He was holding his hand over his heart and breathing quickly. On the other side of the couch, Mello was holding his stomach, laughing.

"This is an emergency!" I yelled. "We need to find batteries, ASAP!"

"Calm your ass, Matt," Mello breathed, choking on his on spit.

Of course, that made _me_ laugh. "No, fuck you guys," I managed. "I need batteries!"

"How many?" asked Jake, still sprawled out on the floor.

"Two."

"Well, I don't have any on me."

"God damn it, why did you ask then? Way to get my hopes up!" I complained.

"Yeah, yeah, I don't know where you'd find batteries though; I don't have any in here."

"Don't you have some in your room, Matt?" asked Mello.

"No, these are my last ones!" I cried.

"Oh. Well, shit, sucks to be you."

I crawled over to Mello on my knees and grabbed one of his hands. "Please, please, Mello, tell me you have batteries!"

He ripped his hand out of my grasp. "No."

"UwaaaaaaaahahaaaaahaaaaAaaa!" I wailed, falling back on to the floor.

"Oh please, don't be a drama queen; you can go a day without your damn video games."

"No, Mells, you don't understand!"

Jake scoffed, "You guys are ridiculous. Why don't you just ask Near for some batteries; I'm sure he has some."

"Oh my God, Jake, you beautiful bastard! Let's do it!"

"No," stated Mello, frowning.

"But Meeellloooo," I pleaded. "Batteries."

"No. We're not asking him for anything. Ask someone else."

"But Mellllloooo," Jake mirrored, "You don't have to come with us."

Ah, he makes a good point.

"Yeah Mellooooo!"

"Fine, Jesus Christ," _snap_ "Go get your damn batteries."

It seemed that Mello had begun to keep chocolate in Jake's room, too.

"Yesssssssss!" I exclaimed. "Let's go, Jake!"

The hallways were far darker than the room had been, because there weren't many windows. It was almost dead silent as we crept along the hall. The linoleum creaked under our feet, because it was old and years of water damage had left parts of it coming up from the floor. The whole thing was actually kind of eerie.

I was actually more than a little scared when a screech suddenly came out of the room labeled "I". However, where I was scared, Jake was terrified, and he quickly jumped behind me and pulled me backwards into his chest. I'm actually not sure how he expected to be hidden from anything that way when he was taller than me, but whatever.

Or maybe he was just attempting to use me as a human shield, that bastard.

"Oh my gosh! You like _him_?" the yell was followed by a particularly loud _shhhh._

Oh, it was just some girls gossiping, I guess. Jake seemed to have come to the same conclusion, because he sighed and whispered, "No wonder all woman seem to be partially deaf." For whatever reason, most likely because he wanted to listen in on the girls' conversation, he hadn't let me go yet.

The girls were only a fraction quieter now.

"Yes, but do not tell anyone! News travels very fast here, Janette!"

"Yeah, I know, but _Jake_? Why? He's so weird!"

Jake made a noise like he'd just been punched in the gut and unconsciously pulled me closer. "Oh my god, Jesus fuck, oh my god, they're talking about me what do I do? Oh my god girls are not allowed to like me oh my god no!"

"Oh my god?"

"Shut the fuck up, Matt."

"Weird? Is Janette insane? Jake is wonderful! A perfect gentlemen!" the girl swooned.

"Gentleman? Did you miss the part where he started to hang out with Mello? Such vulgar language… Plus, he's not even cute! Too tall and awkward. Now, if it had been Near…" Janette trailed off. _Yuck._ The other girl seemed to mirror my thoughts, because she also made a noise of disgust.

"Near is too… What's the word?" she paused. "Socially withdrawn."

"Anti-social?"

"Yes."

"Whatever, at least he doesn't dress boring!"

"But Janette, Near wears the same white pajamas every day…"

"But it's cute on him! Jake only wears dark colors, and he'd really look much better in something brighter! Perhaps orange because of the tints in his hair…" she trailed off. "And something other than blue jeans and ratty sneakers!"

"My sneakers are perfectly fine," Jake muttered. I held back a laugh.

"But Jake is cute too, Janette—he's got freckles."

What's the deal with freckles? Perhaps it was some fad I missed. Freckles instantly make you cute, or something.

"Yeah man," I whispered coyly, "That Jake kid, he's got freckles. Sooooo cute."

"Oh my God," he muttered, burying his face in my hair out of embarrassment. I didn't find the position to be awkward because hey, this was someone whose bed I slept in on a regular basis. Wait… That sounded vaguely inappropriate… I swear it wasn't like that.

Nah, it was more likely that Jake was trying to get me to act uncomfortable. Which wasn't going to work. Because really, I couldn't bring myself to care.

"I wouldn't know. It's kind of hard to see the roof of a skyscraper from the sidewalk, you know," Janette exaggerated.

"He's not that tall!" the other girl defended.

"He has to slouch to fit through door frames."

"Not true! He's only 178 centimeters!"

I tried to raise a singular eyebrow, like Jake was fond of doing, but found that I couldn't raise just one. _Damn._

"Is that accurate?"

"Uh… 178 centimeters is… 5'10? Yeah, that sounds pretty accurate. That's kind of borderline creepy, though; I don't even know my own height."

"Well, you should find that shit out so we can figure out how creepy that was on a scale of one to stalker."

"You know how tall he is? Tch, I suppose you know how much he weighs, too? That guy is far too thin," Janette teased.

"Janette is not being serious, but, Jake weighs fifty-seven kilograms."

"Good lord girl, how do you even know that?"

"Is _that_ accurate?" I inquired.

"That's like 125 pounds, right? Yeah."

"Jesus Christ, that's like what I weigh. Your hands get cold often?" I questioned.

"All of my weight is literally in my hands. Each one weighs like sixty pounds," he joked.

"I am good at guessing."

"Oh, so you don't know for sure?"

"No! I know for sure!"

"Oh, so do you know what size shoe he wears?"

"Huh?"

"Yep we're leaving now!" Jake said, suddenly dragging me down the hall by the wrist. I almost tripped no less than ten times as he pulled me along.

"Huh? What's so weird about your shoe size? You have huge feet or something?" I asked, confused.

He looked at me with an odd look on his face, "Perhaps it's just an American thing…"

Okay, now I was curious. "What?"

"Nothing."

"No, come on dude, you have to tell me!"

"It's just a stupid joke superstition type thing. It's not even accurate."

His face was beet red again.

"Oh ho ho, what kind of suspicion?" I asked. "A _dirty _one?"

"No. Stop asking."

I laughed. Guess what I was googling when the power came back on? You have three guesses, and the first two don't count.

The rest of the walk to Near's room was mostly silent; the other kids were probably busy reading, or out playing in the snow. Before I knew it, we were standing in front of Near's door.

"I never agreed to this," I stated as we stood in the dark. There was a dim light coming from under the door, and a gentle clicking noise could be heard if you were listening.

Most of the girls at Wammy's found Near to be incredibly cute. Most of the boys thought he was a figure to look up to. Mello thought Near was the most annoying person to walk the planet. Jake thought he Near was an okay guy. _I_ found Near to be incredibly creepy.

He had snow white hair that curled everywhere, and he always had a toy of some sort with him. Usually he was sitting down, and when he was walking, he shuffled. Dragged his feet, as if he couldn't lift them all the way. His skin was pale, and he never went outside. In the snow like this, though, he could probably sneak around without being seen. Almost like a ghost.

He was tiny—a tiny container for pure evil.

Trust me, the character who was the cutest was always the corrupt one.

"What are you talking about? You _did_ agree to this. You need batteries; Near has them."

"But he's creepy," I stated.

Jake gave me a weird look, as if trying to determine if I was being serious. He then rolled his eyes and knocked on the wooden door softly.

"Enter," came the soft voice belonging to Near. Creepy.

Jake walked in first, and I slid in softly behind him.

"Hello F, J," Near greeted, not looking up from his stack of… wooden blocks?

"Hey. Do you have batteries?" Jake asked simply, without wasting any time.

"Hai," Near replied.

That was the funny thing about Near; he literally did not care that he was supposed to hide where he was from as best as he could. I knew for a fact that he _could_ speak perfect English, he just chose not to. Perhaps he wasn't even from Japan, and just chose to act like it to throw people off. Yeah, that was actually a more Near-ish thing to do.

"Can we have two?" Jake asked, not missing a beat.

"You may."

"Where are they?"

"They are on the third shelf up on my bookcase."

"Okay, thanks," Jake hummed, spotting the shelf on the other side of the room. He took out two batteries, which he tossed to me. I caught them with ease.

"Your bruise is almost healed," Near observed, turning his piercing gaze on Jake, who'd been walking back across the room, but had stopped when Near started speaking to him.

"Yeah."

"And yet you still favor your right side," he continued, as if Jake hadn't spoken.

Hmm? That was an interesting observation.

Jake didn't seem phased. "What are you implying?"

Near stared at him for a moment longer before returning to stacking the blocks. "Oh, nothing; just making an observation. Perhaps you should see Nadine about that."

Jake did that thing where he raised one eyebrow. Then, he shook his head and continued to the door. "Later, Near."

"I will see you at Dinner, Jake."

Jake made a sound of conformation and walked out the door. I followed close behind.

"What was that about?" I asked, once we were a suitable distance away from Near's room.

"I have no idea," Jake shrugged.

"You sure?" I asked. Near had seemed completely positive of what he was implying, I just didn't know what it was, and couldn't be bothered to think on it.

"Yeah," he confirmed. There were a few moments of silence wherein we made our way slowly through the dark back to Jake's room.

"Told you he was creepy."

He laughed. "Sure, sure."

Of course, we just happened to be passing I's (Isabelle, maybe?) room when he spoke, and the door just happened to spring open, almost hitting me in the face.

"Sorry!" Janette laughed.

Janette was an average height and had straight blonde hair that fell just past her shoulders. Apparently she was American, if Jake was right about the foot size superstition (which I still hadn't figured out). She was always trying to be more fashionable than everyone else, and as such, she was always dressed nice. She was loud, too.

Of course, she also had huge tits, but let's _not_ go there (oh dear lord, what my mother up in heaven would do if she thought I was objectifying woman. Really, let's not go there. [But seriously, they were huge]).

"That's okay?" I said, not sure whether or not it was worth getting worked up over. It probably wasn't.

"Anyways, I have a question for Jake!" she chirped.

"Uh, yes?" he asked, suitably nervous.

"How tall are you? I'm trying to figure out who the tallest guy in our alphabet is."

Ah, that was a clever lie. We probably would've fallen for it, if, you know, we hadn't heard her talking earlier.

Jake had apparently decided to humor her though, because he actually answered, "5'10."

"And you weigh?" she inquired.

"One-hundred twenty-five pounds."

The girl turned her head to the side. "You know you're really underweight, right?"

"I'm aware."

The girl shrugged and then an absolutely evil grin passed over her face. "And your shoe size? In American measurements?"

He rolled his eyes, "Too big for you, miss."

For whatever reason, she started laughing so hard that she fell back into the room, slamming the door shut with her.

A muffled cry of "Janette!" was heard through the thick wood.

"Okay, seriously, what is it about shoe size?"

He looked me straight in the eye (slouching over even more in order to manage it).

"Do you _really_ want to know?"

"Yeah, really, tell me."

He leaned in to whisper in my ear. "In America, supposedly, the size of your shoe corresponds to the size of your penis. Therefore, I have an eleven inch dick."

_Oh. _Well, that's what I was thinking, but instead, what came out was, "Mines bigger."

He snickered, "Sure, keep telling yourself that."

Yeah, you know you're good friends with a guy when you can joke about the size of your dicks together. Maybe if we weren't crazy geniuses that might have been weird.

Of course, since I've already emphasized that Jake is a liar, you can just go ahead and assume mine is bigger.

What? Am I not allowed to joke around about one of my former best friends? Jeez, you die and you think you've got the freedom to do whatever, but it turns out there are just as many rules as when you were alive. This shit sucks more balls than a cheap five dollar whore (goddamn, my mom probably is throwing a fit [but I'm a little to old to care at the moment]).

Stay in school, kids.


	18. In Letters and in Memory

**2234/6148/408**

When we got back to the room, Mello was snooping through Jake's closet.

"Uh, what are you doing?" Jake asked.

"Looking through your closet," Mello answered, continuing to dig through various boxes.

"I can see that. Just make sure you put everything back where it belongs—I hate organizing things," Jake remarked.

Mello made a vague sound of acknowledgment. Jake simply shrugged and walked across the room to his bed, falling into it with his face in the pillow.

I decided that I was going to snoop around with Mello.

"Find anything interesting?" I inquired.

"Depends on what you consider 'interesting,'" he answered. "So far I've found no less than fifty guitar picks, but no guitar."

I snorted, that was kind of just like Jake. "Well, where's your guitar, toothpick?"

He made a vague gesture with his right hand. "Look up."

And so we did. On the top shelf of his closet, there were four things. The first was an acoustic guitar, as expected. The second was an electric guitar, and the third was its amp. The fourth and final thing on the top shelf, though, was an electric keyboard.

"You play piano?" I asked. I mean, it shouldn't have been surprising. The songs he'd composed contained all sorts of weird instruments. Hell, in one of them I swear there was a kazoo used. However, I hadn't heard a piano in any of them.

"Something like that," he answered, his voice muffled by his pillow.

"You any good?" questioned Mello. Jake ignored him in favor of proceeding to take a nap. To be fair, it was kind of a silly question. Of course, he probably didn't _know _we'd gone snooping through his files, but this _was_ a school for geniuses, so I wouldn't have been surprised if he had.

Mello shrugged and went back to snooping through Jake's boxes. He made various noises as he searched, and I wasn't really paying attention until he made a vaguely curious sound.

"What is it?" I asked.

"A letter. Looks like it's been opened before."

"Should we read it?"

Mello looked over to Jake, who was still fast asleep, to the letter in his hands. "Of course."

He opened the letter quietly, so that Jake wouldn't wake up (which was extremely unlikely anyways). He unfolded the letter and I leaned over his shoulder to read it. The scrawl was messy, almost illegible, and there were too many spelling errors to count. I'll translate it into normal language to make it easier on your precious eyes.

_Yo, James, I heard you're wrecking shit outside of NYC these days. You're up in LA now, right? It's pretty sucky that they separated you and Carrie, even if she can't speak well anymore. How do they expect her to get better without her brother? It's damn stupid if you ask me. _

_I miss having you to cheat off, by the way. Mrs. Prinn is "concerned at the drop in my grades. But it's understandable because… you know." Class just isn't that interesting without you to bug. _

_Your dog misses you too, you know. He keeps waiting at the door for you. It's actually kinda sad. This sucks. Come visit soon?_

_I'd write more but you know me,_

_Reese._

_P.s. Officer Hampton says he'll get this to you, but I'm not sure if he actually will_.

"James, huh?" I murmured. I looked over at him. I thought Jake suited him better.

"Hmm, there are more," Mello said, gesturing to the box he'd gotten the first from. "Should we continue snooping or…?"

Fortunately, I didn't have to choose. Mello reached in the box and quickly singled out the oldest letter. It was written on mint green colored stationary, and perhaps it was just me, but it smelled faintly of cigarette smoke.

The handwriting in this one was neat. It was still an odd style, and the letters were dark and very round. There weren't any pointy letters, for example, capital A's had a rounded top.

_Son,_

_I'm sorry for leaving on such short notice. Daddy has business to attend to over seas. Be a good boy and take care of your mother and your siblings; I'll be back soon. If your mother goes overboard on the reading, be sure to tell her. I miss you._

_See you soon, _

_Daddy._

The letter was very short. So Jake's father was a man of few words. By the looks of it, Jake had siblings before coming to Wammy's, and some if not all of them were probably still alive today. Apparently, Jake's genius had still been under the radar at this point in time, otherwise the letter wouldn't have been dumbed down so much.

The next letter Mello reached for was the only other one not on white paper. This one was light blue in color. The writing on it was half cursive, half standard, and very feminine looking. Again, it was probably only me, but this one seemed to smell of mint.

_James and Carrie,_

_I went out to go buy another instrument. Just wait, I'm sure you'll love this one just as much as the others! I hope you weren't planning to do anything today. I also got some more books; they're on the counter if you want to read them. Try not to go through all of them in one day this time! _

_Also, if it's not too much trouble, Jesse and Candice need to be picked up from the bus stop at 3:00._

_See you when I get back,_

_Mum_

_P.s. I bought you guys that spicy chicken you're so fond of. I trust you can heat it up without my help?_

Ah, this letter seemed to be written around the same time, so perhaps his father was the only one not aware of his intelligence level. His sister, Carrie, seemed to be either older or of the same skill level.

But I thought the most important piece of that letter was the part about the chicken. So, Jake likes spicy foods; I can work with that.

The next thing Mello pulled out was not a letter. This one was a photograph. An even younger Jake (still wearing glasses; perhaps Jake wore contacts, or hadn't told Nadine to get him some… I should ask about that), maybe around five years old, was in the picture with three other people. The first was obviously his mother. She had wavy red hair, blue eyes, and her face was spattered with freckles. The family resemblance was uncanny. The second must've been his father, as although the man was sitting down, it was still obvious that he was very tall. This man was wearing glasses over green eyes, and his hair was blonde. The last person in the picture was a girl who was very close in age to Jake. Her hair was wild and blonde, and she had a mischievous grin spread across her face.

"I wonder if Roger is aware that he has these," I remarked.

"Probably not."

At Wammy's, you weren't supposed to bring any sort of documents or photos with you. Jake had obviously snuck these in with some sort of clever plan.

"Don't tell him," Jake ordered blankly. I jumped; I hadn't realized he'd been standing behind us.

"We won't," Mello scoffed, "But how did you even get these in?"

"Hate to bore you, but all of my family's things were burned. I didn't mention that I had anything, so no one asked. I kept them in my safe bag."

"Safe bag?" I questioned.

"Yeah," he nodded, "A safe bag. I didn't have a stable home for a while— I was a run away. I would stay at different shelters, or bus stops if I couldn't find anywhere else, and if someone came looking, I had to leave quick. So, I kept stuff packed so I could just go. When Mr. Wammy came to get me, I told him that there were only clothes in it. He didn't ask any other questions," Jake explained.

"Wait, the actual _Wammy_ came to get you?" Mello asked, clearly surprised. It _was _surprising. I hadn't even met Wammy until at least two years after I got to the orphanage.

"Hmm, yeah. He must've just been in the area at the time. He's a cool guy."

"You lived on the streets?" I couldn't see it. Maybe, though, that was why Jake spent so much time inside, sleeping. It's nice to have a place to stay.

"Yeah. Got frustrated with being treated like a kid, so I just up and left. I turned myself in eventually after I ended up with a bad cold—didn't fancy the idea of dying so soon—then they shipped me off to some dumb catholic school across the country. Said I needed Jesus," Jake laughed, gently grabbing the letters and the pictures, folding them, and putting them back in the box. His eyes lingered on the picture for a moment. He made a contemplative 'hmm' sound.

"I'd forgotten what she looked like."

He didn't clarify which 'she' he was talking about, and we didn't ask. It really wasn't any of our business, after all, and he probably hadn't meant to speak aloud.

Life was funny like that, I thought, that when you lose someone, you seem to obsess about it for the longest amount of time. Then, one day you realize that you can't remember the color of their eyes, or what their voice sounded like. It was sad, like, without your memory of them, they don't even exist anymore. I'd had that feeling before too.

But life would be far too boring if I kept obsessing over it, so I didn't.


	19. In Nightmares and in Habits

**2233/6147/407**

The next morning I woke up on Jake's bed again, without any recollection of how I'd gotten there. Unfortunately, Mello's feet were, again, in my face. The power was evidently back on, as Jake's alarm clock was blinking so that someone would reset the time. This was, unsurprisingly, not very helpful for figuring out the actual time.

There was a very _very_ dim light coming in through the window, so it had to be the middle of the night. Strange, I usually didn't wake up in the middle of the night. Everything seemed to be calm. Then what had woken me up?

_Whimper_

Ah.

Mello was no stranger to nightmares. Having spent so much time with him, it was apparent that it was a regular occurrence. Of course, if you brought it up, he'd deny it. However, I didn't like it when my friends were upset, so, with practiced regularity, I flipped around in the bed and pulled him into my arms.

What's that? You don't think that's normal behavior? Well, odds are you aren't an orphan living in a place where everyone was a genius. Being a genius _and_ an orphan was tough, believe me. There was no shame in comforting a friend. It was logic, really.

Mello stopped shaking around two minutes later, falling back into a deep slumber. I followed soon after.

The next time I woke up, it was actually morning. Mello was shaking me, saying "Get your lazy ass up, Matt, it's six-thirty."

Six thirty? He'd slept in later than usual. At least it wasn't the dawn of Satan's ass crack but it was still far too early to be functioning.

"Hnn, five more minutes," I grumbled.

Jake echoed the sentiment from across the room.

"If you don't get up, I'll get the pans again."

It was funny how that statement got us up quicker than an actual alarm would have. Jake had grabbed clothes and changed in the bathroom in under a minute, and Mello had apparently gotten up earlier to take a shower. It was odd for him to not wake us up, though. Perhaps it was a passive aggressive 'thank you'?

As for me, I sluggishly collected a few articles of my clean clothing from the top of Jake's dresser—Jake's laundry basket had evidently begun to collect my clothing since I'd started to spend time in here. I got changed right there without a second thought.

Breakfast had begun normally; Mello being a bitch to Megan, Megan being a bitch back, Jake being sickeningly polite and still managing to come across as un-serious, Linda being overly mothering when she thought it was necessary, and me playing my video games. Then of course, things had to turn abnormal.

As it happened, Gregory had finally gotten out of the infirmary. Mello was the first one to notice him staring at us, and he stopped mid sarcastic comment to glare at him down the table.

"Is there a fucking problem?"

Gregory grunted and went back to stabbing at his eggs. Jake chuckled nervously.

"Uh ha ha, um, maybe I should avoid the cafeteria for a bit."

"Don't be stupid," Mello glared, "He can't do jack shit with me here and he knows it."

"Huh, I guess so," Jake said, running a hand through his hair nervously.

And Mello was right, of course. Greg couldn't do anything to Jake if Mello was nearby. That'd be like suicide, and he knew it. However, he could still glare at Jake during class, which probably made him uncomfortable. I glanced back at Jake from my spot in the front next to Mello, to see if my hypothesis was correct.

Well, Jake was certainly uncomfortable, but not for the reason I'd imagined. Apparently he sat next to Isabelle in English. I couldn't help but notice that her eyes would occasionally look down at his shoes, only to dart back up as her face turned bright red.

I lightly elbowed Mello in the side and nodded towards them. I'd told him that story a little while after Jake had fallen asleep, and he'd found it just as amusing as I did.

The brunette girl whispered something to Jake, pointing at something on the worksheet we'd been assigned. He whispered something back and underlined something on the page. He then looked up at us, as if sensing that he was being stared at. I winked, and he slammed his head on the table, which admittedly only made a small noise, but every eye in the room turned to him. His face flushed bright red.

'Fuck you,' he mouthed, glaring.

"What was that, Jake?" Mr. Pearson asked, "Are you having trouble with something?"

"No sir, I've just forgotten something important, is all."

"And what did you forget?"

"It's December sixteenth. Do you know what December sixteenth is, sir?"

"No?"

"I don't either."

The teacher raised an eyebrow. Jake was usually a lot better at excuses, so I was waiting to see where he went with this (let me throw that in your face one last time; Jake is a damn good liar). Evidently, so was everyone else. Everywhere around the room, students leaned forward in their chairs, waiting.

"So?"

"Every day is important for some reason; I've forgotten something," he sighed, "this is going to bother me all day."

"Jake?"

"Yes, Mr. Pearson?"

"Do your work."

Jake grinned, "I'm already finished."

The man raised an eyebrow. "Bring it up here, then."

And so he did. Mr. Pearson looked over the paper with a careful eye. He nodded.

"Nice job. Let me get you another worksheet."

Next to me, Mello stiffened and then went back to work twice as hard on his own paper. He finished it while Mr. Pearson was still searching for a sheet to give Jake.

"I'm finished as well, professor."

"Ah, let me see it then."

He had much the same response to Mello's paper as he did to Jake's.

"Perfect, just what I'd expect from the second ranked kids in our school. Why don't you boys work on this paper together? It's harder than the other one."

Mello looked at Jake for a moment before nodding.

"Don't slow me down."

Jake scoffed, "I'll try not to."

And so that's how a habit was born (at least in English). Mello and Jake would finish at roughly the same time, and then they'd both work together on something harder.

"You should phrase it like-"

"I know, but if we just-"

"Yeah, but it's better to-"

"Or even like this would-"

It was amusing to hear them toss ideas at each other, because often times they understood what the other was saying immediately, so it was a constant drone of interrupting. However, they always ended up with a good result, so whatever they were doing, it was working.

The first time one of their combined papers got a higher grade than Near's, Mello hung it up on his door, with a large sign that said "Suck it, sheep boy."

Roger, of course, made him take it down, but Mello was still in a good mood for the next few days after that.

It's probably worth mentioning that Mello doesn't mind working with people that he hates, so long as they're not Near, or they're helping him beat Near.


	20. In Grades and in Arguments

**2229/6143/403**

There were three things that made a friend to me: One: time. We had to spend copious amounts of time together on a daily basis. Two: unpredictability. You had to have some measure of unpredictability about you; otherwise, I would get bored. Three: acceptance. You had to be fine with my smoking habit, for obvious reasons.

Jake was all of these things, which was why I enjoyed his presence, and cared about his health.

It was also why, on the twentieth, I was hesitant to leave him behind.

It had started out as a normal day. It was after classes, and we were all chilling in Jake's room. He was pacing around his room, "cleaning," because room check was rabidly approaching, and Mello and I had trashed his room just for the occasion.

"Seriously, I have two days," he whined, picking up a sweater from the floor and throwing it into the laundry.

We (Mello and I) laughed, "sorry not sorry."

"Fuck you," Jake complained. He tossed an old math binder at Mello. That would be his mistake, as it happened.

Mello, of course, being the snoop he was, decided to go through it. His gaze narrowed the more he looked at the papers, more specifically at the grades.

"A seventy on a graphing test?" Mello asked, suspiciously.

Jake barely spared him a glance, "was probably having a shitty day."

Mello went back to looking through the papers. "Fifty, on an algebra exam."

"Eh, I don't like algebra."

"Seventy- five, on linear equations."

"Still algebra."

"Fifty- four, another graphing test."

Jake paused in picking up a few books off the floor to glare at Mello. "Do you mind?"

"No. Tell me how the fuck you're third if your grades are this low on a regular basis?"

"Look," Jake sighed, "It's just not all that hard."

"Not all that hard?"

Mello was slowly getting angrier, I could tell.

"Yeah… so I don't really try. There's no point to it."

"So why did you start now, mister second place?"

"I didn't. It was an accident; I didn't mean to."

I'd never realized just how _tall _Jake was before Mello was trying to get all up in his face. Jake had to be _at least _ten centimeters taller than Mello, but even so, he seemed to cower under Mello's gaze.

"What do you mean, it was an _accident_?" Mello hissed.

"Uh, exactly what I said," Jake stuttered.

Ah, that was probably not the wisest thing he could've done.

"Are you fucking _stupid_?" Mello yelled. "Why in the hell would you _not try_?"

Jake immediately tried to fall back on trying to distract him with a quote. Needless to say, it didn't work. Mello pushed him back, and Jake somehow managed to trip over his own legs.

"_Why_?"

"It just wasn't necessary," he answered, too quickly for it to be the truth, staring at Mello frightfully.

Ah, the spineless boy wonder shows his spineless side.

"Wasn't_ necessary_? And why in the hell not?"

"Because… because…"

"Well?"

"I was planning on just failing quizzes until they put me back at number 13. I just don't think titles are all that important. I could be in last and still be smarter than you. It just doesn't mean anything. I honestly don't know how I ended up in the top three. I'm not exactly 'top detective' material, you know."

Ah, he definitely could've worded that better.

"ERRRG," Mello growled, "I don't know how either, because you're obviously the closest to 'mentally retarded' we have here!" he took a deep breath. "Come on Matt, we're leaving."

Mello stormed away without looking back. Jake stared at me, as if wondering what I was going to do to him. I shook my head.

"Sorry dude."

And I walked out of the room to find Mello, leaving Jake behind on the floor.

**AND ACT TWO ENDS WITH AN UNBEARABLY SHORT CHAPTER. THE CURTAINS CLOSE. AN ARCH ENDS. THE AUTHOR SPEAKS.**

_Well, that "part" went by quicker than it was supposed to. Most of this is written with only my own eyes having seen it before being posted. In other words, it's not edited, sorry. I don't have time to edit either, because I'm participating in NaNoWriMo again this year. If you haven't guessed, this is the story I'm using. After November, I will most likely go back and "fix" it._

_Until then, please feel free to give feedback—after all, that's why I'm writing fanfiction this year. If I ever want to become a professional author, I need someone to give me feedback. My parents don't have time, and my friends are probably afraid of offending me. Strangers are my best bet._

_Also, I'm aware that "canon Matt" doesn't like going outside. This will come up later, I promise._

**_FAIR WARNING:_**_Mello's point of view next? I think yes._


	21. And Trash

I believe this probably necessitates a language warning. Whoops.

**PART THREE: THE MONTH OF FEBRUARY**

**2228/6142/402**

I could SEE him from across the room, that ASSHOLE. Jake the lazy bastard. No, scratch that, he'd probably take it as a compliment. Jake the dickass dickhead.

That was better.

Just what did he do? The fucker had the balls to say to my face that he didn't even try to get in the rankings. "It was an accident" he said, "I didn't mean to." He admitted, "I was planning on just failing quizzes until they put me back at number 13." He says.

Fuck him.

How could he make fun of my effort like that? He'd _seen_ me stay up all night studying for tests and quizzes and projects. He knew how much effort I put into being in second, and he can achieve it without even trying?

He didn't even have the good grace to lie, that _dick_.

At least Matt wasn't like that.

Oh no, he didn't put all that much effort into studying either, but at least he tried in some way. Even _if_ his idea of trying was hacking into the system to put himself in third. Hell, the kid could probably get to third on his own if he gave a rat's ass, but he didn't, and that's what I liked about him.

He didn't give a shit about anything except his games.

That, and his friends. The guy was loyal as fuck. He followed me everywhere, regardless of what I was doing. He always followed my orders, too, even if they were dumb. I could probably order him to his death, and not only would he do it gladly, he'd hand me the gun.

Like a dog, sort of.

Except he was obviously smarter than a dog.

Thus, when he left Jake behind to find me in my room, studying, I wasn't all that surprised. In fact, I'd been waiting for him.

**2229/6143/403**

"Here, have some chocolate."

I proceeded to toss a bar of chocolate I'd put under my pillow earlier at his face. He caught it easily, having good reflexes due to all the video games he played.

"Thanks."

A few seconds passed with only the beep of Matt's Game Boy to fill the silence.

"So we're not talking to Jake anymore."

Instead of immediately agreeing with me like I thought he would, he just looked at me for a second.

"You sure?"

I brought my eyebrows together, "What do you mean, 'am I sure'?"

"Exactly what I said, Jake is an idiot, but he's an okay guy."

"An 'okay guy'?" I asked, incredulous.

"Yeah, he really saved our ass a few times, remember?"

I frowned. Yeah, he had. "What of it?"

"Just saying. If you're really serious though, then okay."

"Yeah, I'm serious."

That was weird; Matt never disagreed with me like that.

I'd only decided to befriend Jake because I thought Cory and Greg might go after him again. I kind of felt bad for him, you know? The poor kid could hardly raise a fist in his own defense. I'd never imagined he'd actually be pleasant company, but he was, you know, when he wasn't being a dick. He was also an interesting person, if I was being honest. He didn't hide things that he probably should have, but the things he didn't have a reason to hide, he hid. Like, why would he not tell us what he was good at, or why he was interested in playing and beating that damn video game (Kingdom of Hearts, or something?), but have no problems with us snooping through documents he shouldn't be in possession of?

I mean, I'd never tell Roger about his letters, because he has some dirt on the rules Matt and I break consistently, and he probably knew that, but why even give us the option?

Anyways, I supposed he was a 'go with the flow' kind of guy.

He was actually kind of similar to Matt in that respect. Come to think of it, maybe that's why Matt didn't like the idea of leaving Jake all alone. However, if that was it, then he was wrong.

Jake and Matt might both be pushovers, but they were different in it that Jake was the vengeful type. He definitely wouldn't just mope around—he was quick on the uptake. He would hang out with Linda again, or even more likely, Near. He wanted to show us (me and Matt) that he could very well take care of himself.

Befriending Near would not only get him extra respect with Roger and the other teachers, but it would also piss us off.

Tch, but the joke was on him.

I didn't give a shit if he chilled with the albino bastard; after all, trash belonged with other trash, correct?

**2228/6142/402**

So, I wasn't surprised when, the next morning, a very tired Dickass Dickhead was conversing with a smug looking Albino Bastard and his tag-along, Sage. I had no bad things to say about Sage, other than that he sat in close proximity to Near. And that he was a tag-along. And that he had no problems tattling. And that he was far too quiet.

Okay, so maybe I had some bad things to say about him, but that wasn't the point.

"Huh, that's weird," Linda noted, "Jake's sitting with Near…"

Linda. What can I tell you about Linda? She was a good artist, but that was almost all she was good for. In Wammy's House's official rankings, which included all of the kids (and some legal adults), she was ranked forty-third. In our class rankings, which included just the fourth generation, she was ranked seventh. So, she wasn't the most idiotic, but she wasn't the brightest marker in the box, either.

She was also easily worried.

"Fuck him. He can do what he wants," I commented bitterly.

Wait, not bitterly. I was completely A-okay with Dickass Dickhead sitting with Albino Bastard.

"Huh? Did you guys get into a fight?" Linda asked. Her expression was one of concern, and it was making me angry. Wait, annoyed was a better word. Her expression was annoying me.

"None of your business."

"So you did!" Linda confirmed, "What was it about? Are you guys still friends?"

This was usually where I let Matt take over, but he was too busy playing on his handheld to bother.

"Does it _look_ like we're still friends?"

God, Linda was so dumb.

"Well, I don't know, you guys might've just been taking a break," she said, clearly starting to get offended.

"Taking a break? He's not my goddamn boyfriend, Linda."

Kate, the girl sitting a few seats down, who was well known for being a huge gossip, giggled. God damn it, she'd probably heard me wrong. There'd be rumors of my "break-up" everywhere tonight. Great, just great.

It should go without mentioning that Kate was pretty low in the ranking, but in case you needed a clear statement, there it is. She was twenty-third in our class, and 98th in the orphanage.

Linda also giggled, "Sure sure, Mello. I hope you two make up soon though—He actually looked kind of happy for once."

Hah, yeah right. I wouldn't befriend Jake again even if I was directly ordered to by God himself.

And that was not a fucking challenge, big guy.

I swear to God, if God decides he's gonna be fucking ironic and actually order me to befriend Jake again, I'll jump off a bridge. That's a promise.

"Whatever Linda."

"He is being really immature though—he knows you guys don't like Near," Megan responded, finally awake enough to comment.

I liked Megan. She was a funny chick, even though she was hella headstrong. She was good at Math and plotting—but she wasn't better than me. Who gave you that idea? She was ranked fifth in our generation, and eighteenth in the orphanage, therefore, I was the smarter one.

"Whatever. He can do what he wants. I aint his babysitter," I replied, stabbing my eggs with more force than was probably necessary.

No, I didn't care. Not even the slightest bit.

"Mello?" Linda stared.

Aw shit, I broke the plate.

"Yo Megan, don't you know it's rude to break a man's plate? I was eating off that."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I guess I'm just too big of a violent bitch," she joked.

"Yeah, whatever. I'll forgive you, just be more careful next time."

Nothing of importance happened at breakfast after that.


	22. And Scedules

**2228/6142/402**

My usual school schedule (which was almost the same as everyone else's) went something like this:

Literature 8-9AM- I was okay at this class, but I was still only second. Jake was pretty good at this subject too. The past week or so we'd been working together, and I intend to continue with that. No way I'm going to pass off an opportunity to beat Near's bitch ass.

Math 9-10AM- I'm okay at math, too (still second…). Megan was undoubtedly the best—after me, of course. However, if I was being truthful, this was probably because A.) she got anxious taking tests, and B.) she didn't care. Speaking of Math, there's a test coming up. I should study…

Science 10-11AM- I'm just as good at science as I am everything else. However, it was probably worth mentioning that our teacher was maybe a little bit insane.

History 11AM-12PM- Ah, History. The only subject you can't automatically know inside and out. A large amount of studying was necessary for this class, but the topics were usually interesting (and Mrs. Kasey was hot [too bad she was married]).

Lunch 12-12:30PM- Not really a subject, but this was the only meal of the day that wasn't shared with ALL of the kids. That meant that the long tables were taken apart so that individual tables were all over. These tables could only fit four people, but it was easy to drag a chair from somewhere else. I liked lunch because there were no screaming five year olds to bother me from the next table over.

Detective Training (DT) classes 12:30-3PM- Split into three blocks. The first was generally a hobby (like music, or cooking) and took up half an hour. The second was a deductive reasoning course, and the third was a sport. For the top three, in all terms (meaning the top three of any alphabet, AND the top three at the orphanage), this went a little bit differently. You still had the deductive reasoning course (the difference being that it went from being a shared class to an individual one, and thus, it was harder), but your hobby block was combined with the sports one in order for you to get individualized instruction. The individualized instruction was for a talent decided by a test created by Quillish Wammy himself. Usually, this class took longer than an hour and a half, meaning that it cut into your study block.

My lessons were, at first, on sensing and manipulating the feelings of others. This was a talent that, after learning, I stopped actively pursuing, because I honestly didn't think it was important to be able to recognize when a girl wanted to get in your pants. After that, however, I got assigned another topic, and another, until Roger finally just left it up to me to choose. It was different for Matt, or any of the other "top of the alphabet, but not of the school" kids, because they'd just been assigned one, and then were immediately given free time after mastering it.

Jake hadn't taken the test yet. I was slightly curious as to what his would be. Perhaps a class on "how not to be a dumbass dickass dickhead" would be of use?

Study block 3-4PM- For me, this block had almost always been either non-existent or very, very short. For the normal kids, it was a normal block. Simple as that. Sometimes I'd kill time with Matt during this block, if I didn't have a test or something else important to do.

Dinner was at six, and then you were free to do whatever suited your fancy.

For me, this was usually study, or, more recently, work on the Kira case.

Ah, the Kira case. I felt like Matt and I were missing some all-important clue. Kira was a student— Bitchass Dickhead had figured that out— and he was in the Kanto region of Japan. That was, essentially, all we knew. It sucked. I wanted to beat L at this. There was a nagging voice inside of me saying it wouldn't happen, but I crushed it with practiced ease. _Nothing good happens to those who only expect bad things._

In Math, as I was doing my sheet of simple equations, I felt a tap on my shoulder. Most of the class was chattering lightly, as they usually did, so someone seeking me for conversation wasn't exactly odd. Usually, however, it was Matt, who sat on my left in every single class (the desks were tables in a majority of the classrooms, and Matt was left handed [meaning that if he was on my right side, we'd probably run into trouble {not that he ever took classes seriously, instead playing video games under the table]}).

This time, however, it was the girl sitting directly behind me, Tabby. Tabby was an interesting kid. She had orange hair, and copious amounts of freckles. This was more than likely how she got her alias. Often times when kids end up with odd, out of place alias' that wouldn't pass for normal names, like, for example, Bright, it was because they had whoever brought them in, usually Roger, choose their alias. Whoever it was would just give them a name off the top of their head. Believe it or not, Roger, the old coot, had a flair for strange names. He'd picked mine, Near's, and most likely Tabby's.

She was eighth in the alphabet, and fiftieth in the school.

"So, did you and Jake break up, or what?"

From the back of the room, I heard a sound like someone being punched in the gut, which was probably Jake. I silently hoped he'd actually been punched, although the chances of that were pretty low.

Even though I'd expected the question, it was still damn annoying.

"When were we ever dating?"

I tried not to glare. I was hoping the girl might provide a bit of information on this rumor. Perhaps the rumor that Jake and I had been dating had been passed along weeks ago and I'd missed it. I knew for a fact that no one had mentioned the 'Matt and Mello are dating' rumor to my face for around a month before I caught on, so it was plausible. But honestly, didn't the girls here (and Rat, actually…) have something better to do in their spare time?

"Waaah, you weren't?" the girl gasped, "I thought you guys started going out in like the beginning of December?"

God damn, a man couldn't ever make new friends in this place, could he?

"Hate to disappoint, but no. I thought I'd already made it clear that I wasn't gay."

"But you were only nine then… it_has_ been like five years…"

I fought the overwhelming urge to punch her in the face. "Nothing's changed, and it won't change, so I'll _never_ have a boyfriend."

She sighed, looking dejected, "And thus, every Matt/Mello/Jake shipper in a fifty mile radius has their dreams crushed."

I could feel my eye twitching, but I turned away and took a deep, deep breath.

"Yeah Mello, way to crush my dreams," Matt whispered in my ear, just quiet enough that the others didn't hear. He was joking, obviously. He'd made it clear many, many times that he found the entire situation to be hilarious. I'd made it clear many, many times that I'd punch him if he brought it up.

And so I did, punched him straight off his chair.

The math teacher looked up, saw Matt on the floor, sighed, and continued grading papers. A normal day, for the most part.

At lunch, Jake wasn't there.

Don't look at me like that! I still didn't care. I only noticed because Linda brought it up.

Linda did that frequently. Bring up Jake, I mean. Even before we were friends, it was always 'Jake did this…', 'Jake did that…', 'I'm worried that Jake…' It actually bordered on obsessive. I was ninety-five percent sure Linda had a bit of a crush on him, but I would never tell Jake that.

Actually, Linda bringing up her concern for Jake was how Matt and I ended up saving him from Greg and Cory in the first place.

"Hn, he's probably in his room sleeping or something," I commented, cutting my piece of chicken into small pieces.

I expected Matt to either back me up, or for the beeping of his game to become apparent, however, neither happened. I looked at him from across the table. He was staring in the direction of the door, an odd frown on his face.

"Yo, Matt, you okay?" I asked.

"Hmm," he murmured, scraping at his tray, "Yeah, m'fine."

He shook his head and took his GameBoy out from his pocket.

Odd. What was up with that?

For my DT classes and my study block, I dragged Matt to my room to work on the Kira case (after he took a smoke break, of course). I half expected him to say no, because he'd been acting strange all day, but he didn't, and so we were back in my room working on the case.

After about two hours of finding out absolutely nothing, I switched in to studying. Really, it was hard to be second, and I had to study frequently if I wanted to beat Near. But if anyone asks, I never said that.

Soon, it was fife thirty and I was about ready to head to the dining room, but I stopped myself. Jake wasn't here to slow us down. We could make it there in only five minutes.

Huh.

I guess I had twenty more minutes to study.


	23. And Moping

**2228/6142/402**

At dinner, Cowarddick Bitchcunt was sitting next to Isabelle, not Near. Heh, maybe the Albino Bastard turned him down. Wouldn't _that_be hilarious?

It would have been even more hilarious if Isabelle wasn't hanging off of his arm. Perhaps it was still hilarious though, because Jake seemed to be utterly uncomfortable with the situation.

He was smiling and making polite conversation, but I hadn't been trained in emotions for nothing. The way the corner of his mouth tilted up just a little too far, and the way his eyes appeared ever so slightly flat, made it completely obvious (at least to a master like myself) that the boy was incredibly uncomfortable.

I refrained on commenting on it, however, as it would likely upset Matt, who was casually tapping away at his video game. His goggles were placed over his eyes again, which he only did when something was bothering him. Megan was looking at him inquisitively, but I shook my head at her to stop her from asking. He wouldn't answer anyways.

My group ended up being the last kids to leave the dining room. Matt had trailed off down the hall that led to his room without comment, and I hadn't noticed until he'd shut his door. Whatever, he could do what he wanted; he'd probably join me later.

I was standing in front of my door digging in my pockets for my keys when I noticed it. Near's door was wide open, which was a rare occurrence ever since I'd started to really dislike him, and even odder, someone was with him. And not just _someone_, the dorkdick dumbass himself. They were playing cards together, and I couldn't even detect a smidgen of discomfort on that bastard's face. God _damn_it did that piss me off!

I was sorely tempted to walk in and beat the shit out of Jake, but I changed my mind. That would only let him know that his little stunt was working… it'd be better to ignore him. With a great deal of strain, I walked into my room and calmly shut my door.

And then I decided to head out to the shed through my window, because if I didn't, the guys would probably think I was moping (which I _wasn't_) and some of them _had_been looking a bit smug lately.

Oh what the hell, I might as well be honest in my own goddamn head. I was pissed off at Jake, so I was gonna take my anger out on the first idiot to challenge me. It was dumb, but that's how I worked.

So I did. Beat someone up, I mean. Rat was the first one to say something to me (about Matt, I think; I wasn't actually listening), and so I challenged him to a fight and, unsurprisingly, won.

Rat was an interesting guy. He was ninth in our alphabet rankings, and fifty-first in the orphanage. He had copper colored hair, and a ridiculous amount of freckles. Rat and Tabby had something of a rivalry going on, but it was almost like they were friends too. I was reminded of siblings, even more so because Rat and Tabby had the same exact colored eyes. They even had the same hobbies (information gathering [and gossiping). In fact, they were so similar that it was nearly impossible to mention one without the other.

But it didn't matter, I still beat him up.

Afterwards, I felt better, and returned to my room to sleep.

What a strange day.

The next day would surely fall into a pattern of normalcy: Matt never liked to mope for too long. That was another thing I appreciated, actually.

I had ended up in this godforsaken institution earlier than Matt had, but only by about a month. Therefore, I witnessed him being brought in to the orphanage, directly from his old life. Usually, kids had been tossed around between orphanages or foster cares and had professional therapy at some point, but not Matt. The orphanage had taken him right from his parents or the government or the streets or wherever he'd been. I'd never asked him, because I truly didn't want to know. It was easier to just assume that this strange, crazy-ass kid had popped out of his mother's womb already equipped with a GameBoy and a set of goggles.

That wasn't the point, though, the point was that although this kid had just lost something important (whether it be his parents or his freedom or his possessions), and the wounds were still fresh (literally, it looked like he'd been mauled by a particularly vicious cat [and maybe he had]), he took it all in stride and took the time to cheat up his third place spot in the rankings from the get go. He didn't even wait a month to get used to the system; he just did it. He decided he wanted to be third, not second, not first, and had hacked his way into it, knocking Nadine right out of her spot (before she left to study medicine in another country).

That was something a younger me had admired. There I was, this lost little troublemaker with no particular purpose, not even anywhere near the top three at the time, and in comes this scrawny little red head who looked utterly foreign to me, being used to well fed kids who were all (with the exception of Near) far older than me. All the kid does is sit in his room playing video games, and yet he is still crowned as the third smartest kid in the orphanage, and the second smartest in the alphabet. I couldn't figure it out.

I couldn't figure it out, and so I hated him. I wanted this odd, uncaring, sit-inside-all-day kid to leave. And that was why I pushed myself so hard that month, _that_was the real reason why I moved from rank 67 all the way up to second place, kicking T right out of the rankings (which was kind of sad, because the poor dude died not long after that). And Matt was still third.

I knew that it was odd, so I watched him. I watched him fumble over relatively easy words in French, watched him get a D on his math test, watched him fail to comprehend science, Hell, I was even there when he got tricked into telling us his real name, and he was STILL third by the time the month ended again. I was confused, angry, and maybe a little bit jealous.

And then I had to spend a detention with him.

And I watched as he used the computer in the room to loop the surveillance camera to show him working on his homework, so he could leave early. And boy, did I hit him hard; I broke his nose— I even left a permanent crook in it.

He hated me for around three weeks. Or, at least, he _pretended_ to hate me for around three weeks. He would shoot snide comments my way whenever I did the same, he'd glare at me whenever I glared at him, he'd kick me whenever I kicked him, and then he got bored. He didn't ignore me, but he definitely didn't hate me. And then he invited me to play games with him (which I refused), and then he did it again the next day, and the next day, and the next day, so I gave in. I played some video games with him.

It was probably the best decision I'd ever made, because it allowed me to figure him out. He was suddenly not the foreign, scrawny, redhead; he was just Matt. Every time I did something terrible to him, he'd just forget about it. Matt did not like to mope.

So, he would drop this Jake thing, right?

In the vague haze of half sleep, I sluggishly realized that Matt had not come by after dinner. How strange…


	24. And Fairy Tales

**2227/6141/401**

"Yo, Barbie babe, I'm really loving the hair you've got going on!"

In the sleepy haze of half sleep, I wondered what the fucking shit Matt was doing awake at this hour.

"Ugh, what the hell, Matt? It's like three AM, what are you doing up?" I yawned, stretching my back with a satisfying _crack_.

"Three AM? Dude, are you hungover or what? It's like seven," he said, raising an eyebrow.

I stared at him incredulously, blinking the sleep out of my eyes. It couldn't be seven...It was an odd occurrence that I even slept past sunrise, there was no way it could be _that_late. After all, there was so much to do in a day, you couldn't waste it sleeping. But low and behold, I gazed at the blinding red letters of the clock on my bedside table, and shot out of bed. I ran to my window, almost tripping over a book, to make sure the sun was actually up. It was completely possible that Matt was just being an ass, but the sun reflecting off the snow, attempting to blind me, said otherwise.

He was right, it was almost seven.

"Jesus Fucking Christ!"

"That's incest."

I paused in my mad dash to my dresser to stare at him. "I can't believe you just said that." I shook my head, "Whatever, man, help me get all my stuff together." I pointed in the general direction of my school things (strewn about the desk, as always), and ran into my bathroom.

_Son of a motherfuck—what was my hair even doing?_

"Thanks, Mells, shove the heavy labor on your best mate; I see how it is." I could hear Matt complain from the other side of the door. "Don't know why you're in such a rush, anyways. It's not like anyone cares if you miss breakfast."

"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, dipshit," I said, slamming my door open, fully clothed and ready for another day of kicking ass.

"Hah, sure," Matt said. He proceeded to shove my bag into my hands, so that he could pull out one of his games.

"You know, staring at those all day will make your sight deteriorate, especially since you play them in the dark, too. Don't you pay attention in Science?"

"Is that even a question you need to ask? I have better things to do than listen to Mrs. Stein talk— like, you know, stare at her boobs. And besides, that's what eye-doctors are for."

"Somehow, I think you're missing the point."

"What point? The one where I totally won that argument?"

I rolled my eyes, "Shut the fuck up, bitchface."

"That's sexist."

"No, that's the truth."

I could smell the pancakes before I even opened the door. "Really? Again?"

Matt shrugged, "Pancakes are pretty good: no complaints."

"But this is like the twelfth time this month; that's crazy."

"What _isn't_crazy around here?"

"True enough."

We took our seats at the usual spot, across from Linda and Megan.

"Oh, there you are!" Linda smiled, "We weren't sure where you guys went!"

Matt chuckled, "Well, sleeping beauty here felt the need to wait for his charming prince to wake him."

"Charming and beautiful aren't really the words I'd use," Megan sighed, placing her pencil down on the table to stretch. "Ugh, I only just finished my History homework; I'm not sure why Mrs. Kasey feels the need to be so ridiculously boring."

"She's not really that boring," I shrugged.

"Oh, does someone have a crush?" Megan teased.

I felt my face flush, "W-what? No! Jesus Christ, she's married!"

"Wait a second guys, there was History homework?" Matt said, his eyes wide, "Aw shit." He reached for his bag, but hesitated, "Wait, nevermind, I don't actually care."

Linda sighed, "I never understood how a guy like you could make third."

That's right, Linda didn't know about Matt's cheating habits. Megan, I knew, had figured it out a long time ago, but Linda just didn't seem to catch on to anything important, like, ever.

"A guy like me? What do you mean by that? Quite frankly, I'm offended," Matt laughed.

Yeah, same old Matt, he was always bouncing back.

We'd been sitting in the literature classroom for a good ten minutes before I realized that something was wrong.

Before Jake started hanging out with us, he was always in the classroom at 7:55 on the dot. It was 7:59, which meant something seriously out of the ordinary had happened.

Not that I cared.

I decided against telling Matt, because he was just as observant as me, if not more so. He'd probably already realized that Jake wasn't here yet. Jake really didn't seem like the type to walk in late, so he probably wouldn't show at all (if dickbitch scaredyass was anything, he was consistent). Of course, he was also a jerk who just loved to show me up, so, around ten minutes into the class, who else would walk in but the Dickmongering Douchefucking Dumbshit himself.

Our teacher, Mr. Pearson, paused mid-sentence to stare. "Jake, you're late."

Jake made an impressive show of looking ashamed, "Ah, jeez, I'm sorry sir, I was up late last night working something out and I slept in— then I had to run back to my room because I forgot my bag..."

Mr. Pearson chuckled, "Alright, kid, just don't let it happen again. We're doing group work today so—"

"Wait just a second, Mr. Pearson!"

"Er, yes, Mello?"

"You're really going to let him get away with a bullshi— er— dumb excuse like that? Like hell he was working something out! He's lying to you!" out of the corner of my eye, I could see Jake slide further down into his chair. "Oh please, don't you even start with that!"

"Mello, sit down."

Mr. Pearson's voice was deadly serious, and I didn't really want to loose practice because of the almighty vapid shitmouth, so I sat down, but continued to glare at Jake. Fucking douchewagon.

I couldn't see how anyone could believe Jake's bullshit. He was a liar, and come to think of it—how many times had he lied to me and Matt? Did he ever actually mean anything he said? At this point in time, probably not.

I really hated insincere people.

I worked with Matt on the group work, and Jake worked with Near.

Well, fuck him too.

The group work was graded as a test, and because of that, I couldn't wait for it to be graded. Matt and I were going to outscore them, and it would be fantastic.

It was a testing day, for the most part. That meant that in almost every class, we were doing tests. Well, most of us were, anyways; Matt played games under the table.

I'd always wondered why it was that the teachers would spot Matt playing games, give him zeros on his tests, and never say anything when the rankings were updated and he was still in third place. It didn't make sense. Just like how Jake tied with me... Something fishy must've been going on, but at the time, I had no idea what it could've been.

At lunch, I noticed that Matt was wearing his goggles over his eyes again. I felt myself getting angry; I really wanted to punch Jake for making Matt upset.

Or maybe, hopefully, it wasn't Jake at all, and Matt was just mad because he was missing a treasure chest, or something dumb like that.

This time, I let Megan speak up (although I'm sure she would've done what she wanted even if I had warned her against it).

"Hey Bug-Eyes, weather got you down?"

He looked up at her with his eyebrows raised, and expression that read, "I'm not sure what you mean," very clearly.

"Pft, don't try that shit with me, dumbass, I know something's got you down."

"Nah, the sun is just being a huge bitch, is all." He returned to his game.

That was a huge fucking lie, and I knew it, but if Matt didn't want to talk about it, I couldn't make him.

Linda, who'd been quietly picking at a salad, finally spoke up, "Jake isn't eating anything." She pointed across the room to where the doucheshit was sitting. He was with Isabelle, Sage, and Near.

Isabelle was a quiet girl who only spoke louder than a whisper when she was correcting people on the pronunciation of her name. She was number ten in the class rankings, and number fifty-five in the orphanage. She also had a painfully obvious crush on Jake, which was probably why he was looking so uncomfortable.

"You're not his mum, Linda. If he's starving himself, Rena will probably pick up on it. Besides, he'll eat at dinner, you know him," Megan said.

"Well, I know, but it's still worrisome. He's our friend," she paused, "Right guys?"

She was met with an uncomfortable silence.

"Oh."

After lunch, I decided not to work on the Kira case. Matt was still looking upset, and he wasn't going to talk about it, so really, the best thing to do would be to play some video games with him until dinner.

"Hey Matt!" I called as I ran down the hall after him. He'd left earlier than usual, and the only thing more important than Matt's happiness was finishing the food on my plate.

He nodded at me, "Hey. Don't you have a case to work on?"

"Maybe, but I could use a break— test days always bore the shit out of me. I thought we could play some games or something."

He paused in his steps for a moment, but then grinned, "Sure, but I'm totally gonna kick your ass, you know!"

"Like hell you will!"

Of course, he was totally going to kick my ass, but I wasn't going to tell him that.


End file.
